


Cool Kids

by TokitoTaishirou



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Bonding Over Mysteries And Other Friendship Activities, But Not an Asshole, Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider is Not an Asshole, Friendship, Gen, Mystery, Not Necessarily A Good Parent, Now With Pesterlogs!, Now with more mystery!, Rated teen for swearing, Romance Not Really A Thing, Unreliable Narrator, Why do I do this to myself..., acquaintances to friends, becoming friends, hopefully, it's pretty gen tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2019-05-24 04:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 82,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TokitoTaishirou/pseuds/TokitoTaishirou
Summary: After hearing about a Mysterious Creature at school, Dave and Rose team up with classmates John and Jade to search for excitement in the woods. From there, the town's mysteries seem to appear out of nowhere.A story of bonding between four surprisingly lonely kids and the hi-jinks they get up to in the name of scientific discovery and friendship.Or, what happens when the author wants friendship bonding times mixed with supernatural tropes (no affiliation with the TV show, though).





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> My first Homestuck story; if the characters seem...Out of Character, just chock it up to them not having their full personalities yet since they haven't become best friends with one another yet. I'll improve my characterization as I go along (hopefully).
> 
> Also, before anyone gets squicked out, John and Jade aren't actually dating--Dave (and a few others) just don't know them well enough yet and see a boy and a girl with different last names hanging out with one another, and, well... Yeah. Their true relationship will come out eventually.
> 
> Original Chapter: 06/18/18  
> Edited Chapter: 12/03/18--Edited to fit better with overall story and for pretentious quote at the beginning.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story!

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for friendship, and it is far the best ending for one."--The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

* * *

The sound of leaves being crushed underfoot filled the open air. Dave wasn’t quite sure how she did it, but despite bouncing perkily from foot to foot a few feet ahead of the group Jade didn’t seem to be making any sound at all. It was a little unfair, really. Dave, his sister Rose, and their classmate Egbert—John—walked carefully but still seemed to manage to step on every single snappable twig or crunchable leaf as they tried to keep pace with their excitable classmate.

“…How is she keeping so quiet, dude?” Dave finally asked John, turning his head slightly for easy conversation.

John simply smiled and shrugged. “I’ve stopped asking myself that a while ago. I think it’s because she grew up on this tropical island pretty much all by herself, and she would go out exploring the forest a lot.” His smile turned wry as he regarded Jade with fond exasperation. “You wouldn’t think it looking at her, but she’s actually a really great hunter.”

John was right—Dave didn’t expect that. Jade had always seemed to be the kind of bright, happy chick that would probably cry over a hurt animal let alone actually go out and hunt one down. If anything, she more fit the image of a Granola Girl with her perky attitude, long skirts and her general quirkiness. And growing up alone on a tropical island? Exactly how did that kind of thing even happen, not to mention how did she somehow move into their town? Jade wasn’t the only surprising one. Outside of the school environment John somehow seemed a lot less childish and made a lot more jokes than usual. Dave hadn’t even noticed a hint of a prank during their hike. He found himself re-examining what he really knew of his two classmates.

Rose, to his side, hummed to herself and gave John a considering look. If it was anyone but Dave they probably would have missed the note of excitement in her eyes and voice. “So it seems that Jade is our best bet at tracking our mysterious creature, then.”

Dave stifled an amused snort that threatened to escape. His sister was so convinced that the so-called ‘mysterious creature’ supposedly spotted in the woods a week ago was one of her eldritch monsters. Dave was mostly tagging along out of curiosity and boredom. All part of being a good twin brother.

After all, what else was there to do in this stupidly small town?

* * *

School started off the way it always did. Dave and Rose walked together into the building and greeted their friends and acquaintances as they passed through the halls to their lockers, conveniently located right next to one another. After gathering their books for class the twins separated for their own individual groups of friends, but not without the usual routine of Rose idly trying to straighten Dave’s clothes and hair while Dave brushed her off with a grin and a wave. Dave headed off to his friends among the skater and rap music scene. Rose joined her friends in the drama and English department.

The day started off as any other day did. Boring. Dave laughed and let out a smile or two with his friends and couldn’t help thinking how utterly pointless and boring everything was. Every day was the same as the last and about the only thing that changed were the season’s current fashions. Such was life in a small town, where the closest thing they had to a city was the shitty suburb of another city that had decided it wanted more of a small town vibe and thus broke off all relations with that other city. Divorce proceedings were unnecessarily brutal, involving restraining orders and therapy for everyone involved with neither side really getting what they wanted out of it. And like always happens with a messy divorce, it’s the children who suffer for it. Dave had thought things would be…different, when he entered high school. His older brother and sister Dirk and Roxy were in their senior year and much too cool to hang out with freshmen, though they’d stop to exchange pleasantries every now and then in the hallways.

If he was really bored Dave would seek out Rose and her friends to hang out with, though even that got boring. Everyone talked about the same things over and over, it seemed. They would go to school, come back home, and go back to school the next day. Very rarely his older siblings were invited to a party, though more likely than not any parties would be hosted at their rather large house. Any time his friends wanted to meet up after school or on the weekend they would insist on coming over to his house. For once, Dave would like to freaking _leave_ his house to go out and do _something_ with other people. Instead, he was stuck with the same monotonous routine in the same locations with the same people over and over, like a broken record. Nothing ever changed or happened. 

Dave suppressed a snort and grimace. It looked like he was falling into the pattern of being a stereotypical teenager with nothing fucking better to do but whine and complain about how boring and shitty their life was. The Irony Gods were surely weeping. Their own Chosen Son, brought into this world by the chance union between a Lord of Irony and a Lady of Motherfucking Class, was falling into the pit of Normalcy, doomed forever to be banished to the furthest reaches of paradox space where all of the un-cool losers dwelt.

Truly, this was a travesty for the fucking ages.

“Hey, look,” Roy smirked, elbowing Dave in the side to get his attention. Their group of friends was huddled at one end of the large entrance hall to the school, waiting for the doors to their classes to open. Roy nodded towards the doors at the school entrance where a familiar face was just coming in, already headed towards another group of kids with a smile on his face. Dave recognized him instantly—with a school their size it wasn’t difficult, particularly since they were in the same grade. “Egderp’s at it again.”

Dave rolled his eyes behind his shades. “Of course he is. We’re already, what, a month and a half in at this point? You’d think he’d fucking learn by now.” Snickers and headshakes went around the group, all focused on watching John Egbert creep over to his newest group of victims with an ever-widening grin on his face.

“What do you think it’ll be today?” Josh asked idly, though he, too, was watching avidly. “Hand buzzer? Whoopee cushion?”

“Nah, I’m thinking Egbert’s gonna go clever this time,” Diego mused, resting his chin in his hand. “I’m betting fake vomit.”

The group looked on as Egbert snuck up on the poor group of kids standing by the music room door and startled them into conversation. Dave didn’t know how he did it. Everyone in school knew by now that John Egbert was an unrelenting prankster who apparently didn’t think a day was well spent without pulling at least one prank. How he managed to get anyone to talk with him for long was a mystery, especially since Egbert usually only talked with people to lull them in before pranking them. There was just something about his easy-going nature that made him endearing enough to let your guard down around.

Dave saw what Egbert had planned about a second before it happened. Egbert gestured around wildly, telling some story or another. His hand drifted towards his messenger bag, unnoticed to the kids he was talking with. Dave saw their uneasy expressions slowly start to turn into less wary ones, even offering a few smiles and laughs at whatever story Egbert was telling them. Egbert perked up, saying something excitedly to one of the band kids Dave was pretty sure was in concert choir with Rose. He offered up a high five that the other kid returned easily.

Rookie mistake. Dave shook his head sadly as the other kid pulled his hand away in disgust and shook out his hand to get rid of the shaving cream that had been smeared there thanks to a laughing Egbert, who took the time to run off to the other side of the entrance hall. The concert choir kid scowled and howled out some generic phrase or another—‘I’ll get you for this!’

Just as that seemed to be the end of the Egbert Entertainment Hour the entrance doors to the school opened once more to let in another group of tired kids. Among them was Jade Harley, an odd girl who’d transferred in at the beginning of the school year. Despite her friendly and outgoing nature, there was just something…off about her that kept the other kids from being too close to her. He wasn’t sure if it was her long, wild hair that she never seemed to bother taming, or her long skirts that she wore literally every day, or the colorful strings all over her fingers, or the fact that sometimes it seemed like she didn’t know basic things, like what a pencil sharpener was. She always seemed to live only in her own personal universe without bothering to try and join in with the rest of society. The only person she was really friends with, from what Dave had causally observed, was Egbert who was just as crazy as she was.

Dave was pretty sure they were dating.

“Harley!” the choir kid called out. Jade’s head whipped around to where she heard her name called. She shuffled from one foot to the other, clearly wanting to head further into the school but also curious what the choir kid had to say. “I need to talk to you about Egbert!”

Dave could see her shoulders slump from across the entrance hall. His friends snickered around him, gathering up their belongings and getting ready to head to class. 

“Looks like Harley’s getting chewed out about her boyfriend again,” Josh observed, barely sparing a glance in his classmate’s direction before heading off. Dave stayed back for a step or so, watching as the choir kid showed off his pranked hand and Jade tried to calm him down, before he joined his friends.

It wasn’t really any of his business.

* * *

Things finally took a turn for the interesting around lunch time.

As usual, Dave met up with Rose at their lockers in the hall before heading to the cafeteria together. Dave, as the dutiful brother that he was, listened as Rose talked about her friends and classmates and proceeded to try to break them down psychologically. He was pretty sure their school had an elective for upperclassmen in psychology. He was also pretty sure that his sister was trying to convince their guidance councilor that she needed to be in said elective next year despite not being ‘old’ enough for it.

According to Rose, Tim from science and Linda from English were obviously locked in some kind of intense psychological warfare with one another, partly in response to how Tim’s home life situation somehow brushed up against Linda’s crippling inner depression, causing the two to think that the other was somehow mocking them for their own problems. Dave wasn’t quite sure he believed that; Tim’s ‘home life situation’ was that he was the middle child of five siblings while Linda was a raging bitch who liked to pick on people whenever her best friend wasn’t around to rein her in.

Dave nodded along to Rose’s speech, barely paying attention enough to get the briefest of summaries. He suppressed a lip quirk at the thought that his sister was just as bored and looking for some kind of distraction as he was. After retrieving their lunch trays the twins started the Where To Sit game. Really, it was more of a Whose Friends Do We Sit With This Time game, but that didn’t roll off the tongue as easy.

He supposed that they could, potentially, sit with their own group of friends and not with each other for once. But, nah. That didn’t seem as much fun.

They stood to the side and looked around at their options. Honestly, none of them looked very appealing. He noticed Roxy across the room spot them and beam their way. Dirk looked up briefly, offered a solid Bro-Nod, and went back to conversation with his and Roxy’s friends. Dave wilted slightly. If worst came to worst, they could always sit with their older siblings. But seriously, how lame did you have to be that you didn’t have any other choice but sitting with your older siblings?

So not cool.

Rose didn’t seem to get the memo, though. This was a shame, considering she lived with the Striders and all of their unfathomable Irony and Coolness factor. The Lalondes had Class on their side, too, so she also didn’t have an excuse there. At the very least, she didn’t seem pleased with their options. How she decided that the social equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot was the best option available, Dave didn’t know and didn’t particularly care to find out. His sister’s thought patterns were a mystery, even to him.

“…we should probably find a seat soon,” she murmured. Without waiting for a response she set off down the cafeteria with Dave at her side.

“This is so lame,” he muttered to her. Rose ignored him. Dave sighed and looked to the side. He wasn’t expecting the snatch of conversation he caught as they passed by a certain table. Rose paused when he did, looking over to see what caught her brother’s attention.

“—really! The paper didn’t have any pictures, but I checked out the area and found footprints. They were huge!” Jade exclaimed to a curious Egbert. “They’re supposed to be all over the woods, though I could only find the one set. Whatever thing made them, it’s probably some kind of monster, don’t you think, John?”

Egbert squinted down at a newspaper Jade had laid out in front of him, peering down at the news caption. “I don’t know, Jade. It doesn’t sound like a normal animal. And the article doesn’t even have any pictures, either. Doesn’t that seem a little suspicious? It’s probably a hoax.”

“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear,” Rose interrupted smoothly, sliding in to a seat next to Egbert. He and Jade looked up in surprise. Dave was both unsurprised by his sister’s actions and mildly impressed she’d managed to sit down so quickly without him noticing. Silently, he sat down next to Jade and prepared to be whatever silent backup Rose would need. “Did you say something about a monster? In town?” Her eyes glimmered with undisguised interest.

Egbert rolled his eyes while Jade beamed. “I think so, at least!” She moved the newspaper closer to Rose to look over and gestured wildly while she talked. Dave was vaguely surprised to see that their town apparently had a supernatural tabloid. “It says here there was a mysterious figure seen wandering around in the woods outside town, though no one could really get a good look at the thing.” She shrugged, still smiling happily. “I checked it out before school today, and there were definitely really strange footprints!”

Rose hummed under her breath as she quickly scanned the article, intrigued. “I don’t suppose you have any pictures of the footprints with you?”

Jade gasped, shocked. “No, I should have taken some, though! Maybe _then_ a certain somebody would believe me!” She leveled Egbert with a mock glare that he rolled his eyes at. Dave, unusually, decided to keep quiet and eat his lunch. This show was priceless.

“Unfortunate,” Rose decided, handing the magazine back to the excitable girl. “Would you be amenable to take me to see the footprints in person after school? Or whenever is most convenient for you? The sooner the better, of course.”

“That would be great!” Jade beamed. “I’d love to!”

“Wait, wait,” Egbert interrupted, looking back and forth between Rose and Jade. “Why do you want to see some dumb footprints, anyway?” he asked Rose. “And why are you agreeing so easily?” he then asked Jade.

“Gonna have to agree with Egbert on this one,” Dave interjected for the first time since sitting down at the table. “What the fuck, sis? Maybe give a guy some warning before deciding to go running off into the murder woods.”

“It’s not like I asked you to come along with me,” Rose replied, eying Dave coyly. He gave her an unimpressed look in return. There was no way he was letting her wander off alone (or as alone as she could be with a random classmate tagging along) while he returned to their house by himself. Besides, if Rose was getting to go on some random ass adventure then he sure as hell wasn’t getting left behind.

“To answer your question,” Rose directed to John, “depending on the footprints we may be dealing with something…unusual.” She gave a smile that would have unsettled lesser mortals. Frankly, Dave was a little impressed that Egbert and Jade weren’t affected by it; maybe they didn’t know any better. “Unusual happens to be relevant to my interests.”

Egbert sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not really sure what you’re expecting to find, but okay. I’ll come along, too.”

“Just try to leave me behind, Rose,” Dave said challengingly, holding his twin’s gaze through his sunglasses.

“You’re coming too, Dave?” Jade asked. “Great! This’ll be like an adventure!” She giggled to herself, as if laughing over some private joke.

“Precisely,” Rose commented. Egbert looked around the table and shrugged, turning back to his lunch.

“So. Are we doing this today, or what?”

* * *

They agreed to meet in the park after school, near where a trailhead began that Jade claimed to have taken to get to the footprints.

Despite himself, Dave couldn’t focus in school for the rest of the day. The final bell couldn’t come soon enough. It wasn’t much, but he was finally going to do something different to get out of the rut that his personal life had fallen into.

Supremely uncool. His family could never know.

His excitement may have even shown through once or twice. Not that anyone could prove anything, of course. If Dave happened to have power walked his way to his siblings’ car in the parking lot when school finally let out, it obviously didn’t mean anything. Sometimes a dude just really wanted some exercise.

“Okay, what’s up with you Dave?” Roxy asked from the driver’s seat a few minutes into the drive home. Dave jolted in his seat, having been staring out the window aimlessly. His older sister’s eyes flickered between his in the rearview mirror and the road. Even Dirk had his head tilted towards the backseat, curious.

Rose merely gave him an exasperated look.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dave said as perhaps the worst way he could have answered. He was the suspicious one, it was him. He couldn’t see his brother’s eyes from behind his shades but Dave still somehow knew he was being given a flat look.

“Uh huh,” Roxy replied, utterly unconvinced. “Not sure if you’ve noticed, kiddo, but you’ve been tapping your foot back there since before I even started the car. Thought there was a woodpecker back there, like god damn.” Dave stilled his foot immediately but otherwise didn’t let on his embarrassment at having been caught. Striders were cool, okay, and they certainly didn’t let their emotions be shown to the world at large for free. Nah, son, you had to pay to see that shit—Striders were an impenetrable fortress of Cool and Irony, and only those who truly sought out the secrets to their shit could view the true Strider within.

And then they would have to make their way past the other layers of Cool and Irony. It wasn’t an easy journey, and there were very few who were able to actually get that far. Even then, the lucky fuckers still had to pay an admissions fee to cover the costs of being a Truly Supreme Being of Cool and Irony.

“Dave, you’re rambling under your breath again,” came Dirk’s stoic voice. Fuck.

Roxy was silent for a moment. “So…I’m guessing something happened in school today?”

Rose gave another put upon sigh, sitting straight and perfect in her seat. Her hands were even folded in her lap, what the fuck. “We have plans to meet with a couple of classmates in the park after school. I believe Dave is expressing his desire, in his own way, to proceed ahead with our meeting.”

“Aw, Davey’s excited to play with his friends!” Roxy cooed, turning onto the street that led to their long-ass driveway that led to their house. “That’s cute as shit.”

“They’re not friends,” Dave was quick to defend himself. “And I’m not excited to meet them. We’re going to the park and I thought it’d be a good chance to use my new camera.” That sounded plausible, and a whole lot fucking better than ‘I’m so bored with my life, this is just something to pass the time with.’ But, yeah, now that he thought about it bringing the camera along wouldn’t be a bad idea. It would at the very least help with documenting whatever-the-hell-it-was they’d be looking for.

Plus, Dave could get some really cool photos out of it.

Rose turned to him with a raised eyebrow. Dave steadfastly looked away, refusing to give in to her weird, creepy psycho-babble-voodoo. He could still feel the weight of her stare, however.

“How long are you planning to be out with your ‘not-friends’?” Dirk asked. “Don’t forget it’s your night to set the table and do dishes. I’m sure as shit not going to cover for you with Bro.”

Dave hid a wince while Rose answered for them. Bro could be scary-strict whenever he decided to ‘parent ironically.’ “I wouldn’t imagine that we’d be out any later than six, but we’ll be sure to have our phones on us if something comes up.”

“Do you need a drive to the park?” Roxy asked, pulling into their driveway. “I mean, I’m right here with keys and a car and everything.”

Which, fuck that. There was no way Dave was going to risk his Cool Kid Rep over having his sister drive him places to meet up with random classmates. Carpooling to and from school was one thing; getting driven around like he’s going to a fucking _play date_ is a whole other ball-arena. Or whatever the sports metaphor was.

“Yeah, no, thanks but no thanks,” Dave rushed to say, throwing his car door open before the vehicle had fully stopped. “It’s not that far to the park, we can walk it in fifteen minutes easy.”

“I think he’s embarrassed by me,” Roxy not-quite-whispered to Dirk just loud enough for Dave to hear. “That’s totes adorbs.” Dirk snorted and gathered his things from the car. Dave didn’t bother waiting for Rose before he absconded into the house. She’d meet him at the door, no problem. 

Dave took the stairs up to the second floor three at a time, shedding his jacket as he went. He stifled a scream when he turned the corner to see Lil’ Cal waiting for him on an end table in the hallway. Giving the puppet a wide berth and a quick fist-bump in pacification, he stepped quickly into his room and threw his backpack on the floor carelessly. Dave took a moment to locate his camera equipment and decided on which one he wanted to bring along. He was tempted to take the old piece of junk one he’d found online that only took pictures in black and white film, figuring the irony of taking old black-and-white photos like some film noir crime scene would be pretty fucking hysterical, actually. Dave didn’t know what they’d be doing, though, exactly, and didn’t want to risk breaking the thing. It had been hard as balls to find an actual camera that would take actual black and white photos without the use of filters—you just couldn’t get that kind of vaguely crappy quality with filters. And there was no way he was willing to risk his art for what was more than likely just a hike in the woods.

Reluctantly Dave put the old black and white camera back in its spot and grabbed one of his cheaper film ones with a strap to hang around his neck and a digital camera that wouldn’t break just by falling if something happened. Dave was in an experimental phase with his photography, so he liked to have Options with his photographs. He ran through a mental checklist of what he might need, decided to just wing it, grabbed his camera bag and headed back into the hallway.

Worryingly, Lil’ Cal was no longer sitting on the end table. Dave hoped, wherever he was, that that stupid puppet was harassing Rose for once.

Cautiously, yet outwardly exuding nothing but calm, Dave headed back down the stairs to wait for Rose by the front door. He could hear the voices of his other siblings further in the house, most likely in the kitchen getting something to eat before starting on their school work. He leant against the wall next to the door and checked the clock on his phone. It was close to three-thirty now and would take him and Rose about fifteen minutes to walk to the park. To and back would be about half an hour altogether, leaving about two hours for them to fuck around in the woods before they’d have to be back. Plenty of time for who-the-fuck-knows. Hell, Dave wasn’t even sure there was anything actually out there. More likely than not it was just some fucked up footprint that made people think there was actually some kind of monster, and this whole trip was just some huge time-waster.

But, after years of being subjected to his mother and sisters’ interests, particularly Rose’s, he couldn’t quite discount the possibility that there was something more. It was just fucking stupid and quite frankly irresponsible to leave these kinds of things up to chance. Dave could see it now. The stupid-ass main characters ignore the obvious signs that are right in front of them, then next thing you knew there was some shitty monster out there picking people off one by one, with the main characters finally having that much-needed epiphany that, oh, wait, _just maybe_ this may be a fucking issue? Too bad no one will listen or believe them, because why would they? You didn’t even believe this was a thing in the first place!

By the time enough people wise up to what’s really going down almost everyone’s dead and it’s just up to the main characters to save the day.

And all of that could have been avoided if they’d just fucking done something about it when they first had the chance. Dave hated that kind of sloppy storytelling and had sworn to himself he’d never be the main character of a monster horror movie. You’re just dumbed down to the point where, quite frankly, it’s a fucking miracle you’re even able to function in life with how stupid your decisions are. Yeah, that wasn’t Dave. He had more sense than that, at the very fucking least.

“And where are you off to, little man?”

Dave, startled out of his inner musings, stiffened at the sudden appearance of his technical dad ‘Bro.’ From what he’d been able to pick up over the years his dad apparently didn’t want to face the fact that he was growing older and was possibly ‘domesticated,’ with ‘responsibilities’ and a ‘mortgage’ (not that they even had a mortgage, thanks to Mom’s well-paying job and Bro’s secretive and shady yet also apparently lucrative puppet porn website). So, instead, he insisted that his kids call him Bro as a way to pretend that he wasn’t old enough to be a father to four kids.

Guy was a freaking ninja warrior who made practically his whole life and profession about puppets in some regard. Dave would almost accuse him of having a midlife crises, if he wasn’t afraid he’d wake up some morning completely surrounded by creepy-ass puppets.

Dave resumed leaning against the wall, still completely casual-like. He didn’t take his eyes off of Cal, draped across Bro’s shoulders. Good thing his shades hid that particular weakness. “Oh, you know. Just waiting for Rose. We’re meeting up with some classmates in the park in a few minutes. Should be back by six, though.” Goddamn, it was so hard to remain nonchalant when Cal’s beady eyes stared straight into Dave’s soul. He wasn’t sure how Bro or Dirk could stand those freaky puppets, especially not with how…enthusiastic they got about them.

Mom, Roxy and Rose were obsessed with wizards, the gayer the better. Bro and Dirk were all about puppets and horses, apparently. Dave was quite happy neither of these obsessions had been genetically passed down to him.

Bro stared down Dave for a moment and shifted on his feet. “Pick your jacket off the floor first. Or Cal will do it for you.” Dave felt himself go pale and absconded right back the fuck up the stairs to wherever he’d left the damn thing. He’d learned by now that it was better not to let Cal have the chance with any of Dave’s stuff if he wanted his things in the same condition he’d left them.

Bro’d never actually _break_ any of his things, but he did tend to either confiscate them or…make ‘additions’ his kids would rather not have other people seeing.

Dave threw his jacket in a closet upstairs and raced back to the front entrance hall where Bro was just leaving.

“When’s Mom coming in tonight?” Dave asked before Bro left completely. Bro paused in the doorway to the living room, glancing back at Dave for a brief moment.

“She’s working late,” is all he said before he completely absconded.

“Typical,” Rose said from behind him. Dave turned around to see her in a completely different outfit, this one slightly more practical for gallivanting around in the woods for a few hours than her previous one. If you could call a black and purple dress ‘practical’ for hiking. “Well, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. Mother is always either at work or traipsing around the house in some parody of a 50s housewife.”

Dave frowned but didn’t say anything. His twin tended to get like this about their mother. “I both can and can’t believe you changed into a completely different yet totally the same outfit just to meet Jade and Egbert in the park. Is this another one of your attempts to upstage people? Because I kind of think the efforts wasted on those two.” He led the way out of the house and down the driveway, starting the walk towards the park.

Rose’s eyes glittered in amusement. “Perhaps I want to look my best for whichever Horrorterror—or other monster of indeterminate origin—we happen to find. If we do indeed find anything.”

He snorted. “Yeah, it’d be a real shame if you didn’t dress up for your date with monster-destiny. They’d probably turn you right away, no can do, ma’am, we have a _dress code_ here in these murder woods. You have to be this glam and fashionable to approach our undulating tentacles.”

“Yes, that would indeed be a serious breach of conduct,” Rose agreed with a serious tone of voice. Dave could still see the small hint of a smile on her face. “Quite possibly the worst first impression I could make, I should say. Well, no matter; I’m quite certain that our monster, whatever it may be, will be gracious enough to overlook such banal matters.”

Dave rolled his eyes and nudged his sister’s shoulder with his own. “You know. ‘Cause monsters are known for their discerning tastes.”

“Precisely.”

* * *

After another ten minutes of mild banter they reached the park and started looking for their two classmates. Rose led them down the path that would take them closer to the tree line where the forest met the back end of the park.

“Pretty sure Egbert and Jade said to meet in the very back,” Dave said in passing. He fingered at the shoulder strap on his camera bag idly.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Rose said suddenly. Dave glanced at her, wary. That was never a phrase he wanted to hear from her. “Is there a particular reason you use John’s last name and Jade’s first?”

Dave shrugged, placing his hands in his pockets. His camera bag rested against his shoulder and bounced lightly against his side as he walked. “I dunno. I never really talk to Egbert—uh, John, so I guess I just use his last name instead. You know how many ‘Johns’ there are in our school? Not that many, since there’s like, five hundred people tops, but enough to confuse people if I just say ‘John.’ Like, which John? The one with the red hair? The one in senior year on the football team? The one who swears that his real name is Timothy Gloxnar from the planet Andromeda 9? The one who plays pranks? Shit gets confusing fast. Plus, this way I can say Egdork and be hilarious.” Rose slid an unimpressed look his way. “As for Jade, I don’t know, she just seems more approachable I guess?”

“And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that your ‘friends’ only refer to him by his last name so you do as well?” She raised an eyebrow at him, looking like she was close to winning whatever argument they were apparently having. “Perhaps your usage of last names for your male classmate, whom society has told us is your most likely choice for a new friend as you are both male and gender norms are a ‘thing,’ is a way for you to try and maintain distance away from a new relationship, one you apparently don’t feel ready to commit yourself to just yet?

“Why you gotta use air quotes like that?” Dave slouched slightly, choosing to ignore the last part of her rant/diagnosis. “If you don’t think they’re my friends, then just say it.”

“I don’t think they’re your friends,” Rose replied quickly. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you only spend time with them at school or parties at our house, Dave. You don’t even talk with them outside of school.”

Dave scowled at his sister. “And just how is that view from your glass house, Rose? ‘Cause I don’t seem to recall any play dates with _your_ friends, either.”

“So this will be a new experience for the both of us,” Rose murmured. “Well, for the duration of our time together may I suggest you use only first names? We have no idea how long it will take to actually track down our mysterious creature and I imagine the process will be much more pleasant if we at least have the appearance of cordiality?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Dave replied. “It’s not like it’s a big deal either way.”

Rose looked like she was going to reply, no doubt with another ‘helpful suggestion,’ when a sudden sound from up ahead cut her off. It wasn’t quite like anything Dave had ever heard before, which only made him interested in finding whatever made the glorious sound. And it was still going.

“What on earth…?” Rose pursed her lips and sped up down the walking trail in the park, Dave following shortly behind her. They turned a bend in the path to a clearing encircled by trees. The field itself was a little on the small side with a public outdoor grill and picnic table set to one side of the clearing leaving space open on the other end for whatever outdoor event or sports ball tournament or whatever people did when they came to parks.

Sitting calmly on top of the concrete picnic table was Jade, happily playing a flute rather badly and very enthusiastically. Dave smiled a little, remembering hearing that the perky girl was apparently a terror in music class. At least she appeared to be practicing, and seemed happy to do so.

Egbert—fuck, John—was lying down on the grass nearby with a slight frown on his face, though he kept time with the swaying of his foot.

Rose cleared her throat on their approach, halting Jade’s amazing practice session. “My apologies. I didn’t realize we were running late.”

Jade beamed while Egbert sat up. “No problem! It’s not like we really had a concrete time to meet, anyway.” She shrugged, putting away her flute piece by piece into its carrying case before stuffing that into a surprisingly bulky backpack sitting at her feet. “I decided to get some practice in while I waited. I’m a lot better on the bass, but I think I’m getting better at the flute, too!”

Egb—dammit Rose—John stood up, brushing off stray grass from his pants. “Now that we’re all here, should we get going? I need to be able to get back home by dinnertime or my dad’ll be upset.”

“Same with us,” Rose demurred, though her excitement shown through in the way she edged closer to the tree line. “Shall we?”

“Yup!” Jade said cheerfully, slinging her bag across her shoulders like it weighed nothing. “Follow me!”

Before he knew it, Jade had already taken off ahead of everybody, though she’d thankfully stayed within viewing distance. Dave turned to Eg-John with a frown on his face, feeling suddenly underprepared with nothing but his camera. Better than Rose and her fancy dress, at least.

“Hey, dude, were we supposed to bring supplies or some shit?” He vaguely gestured ahead to Jade, who was carefully examining the forest for something before taking off again. “Like…she knows we’re only going to be out here for a few hours at most, right? I sure as shit didn’t plan on a fucking camping trip.”

John grimaced slightly, though his expression held a hint of exasperated fondness as well. “Yeah, Jade tends to…go overboard a lot when it comes to doing anything outside. She was pretty much raised outside before she moved here, so she always makes sure to bring along, like, _everything_. I’ve told her a few times it wasn’t really necessary, but…” He shrugged his shoulders in a _what can you do?_ gesture that Dave understood perfectly. Dirk tended to be obsessive with his projects and interests, too, so Dave could sympathize with someone close to you going overboard for relatively simple reasons. Hopefully Jade at least remembered to eat and sleep on a regular schedule.

After that, conversation between the twins and John dwindled as the three spent their focus on trying to follow after Jade, who tended to bound through the forest in a perky manner that Dave wasn’t entirely sure was necessary. John took it upon himself to tell surprisingly funny jokes on their hike which kept up the twins’ spirits enough to keep going through the woods. Clearly, this section was reserved for more experienced hikers, which made sense to a certain extent. If there really was a monster or some kind of mysterious creature out here it’d more than likely stay as far away from humans as it could. 

Looking at the trees and foliage around them, Dave could definitely believe that humans didn’t travel out this far very regularly. There was a thin trail that disappeared in places that Jade kept them to, though he still had no idea how she could move around so easily—or silently. At least Dave managed to get some cool photos out of the trip.

About three-quarters of an hour later had Jade coming to a sudden halt, much to Dave’s relief. He didn’t even realize the woods were so deep or big (ha; shut up, Rose), and he was only 30% sure that they’d started to go around in circles. What little trail they’d had in the beginning had long since disappeared by now.

“Okay, we’re really close now,” Jade informed them, turning around to give the area a full sweep with her eyes.

Rose grimaced, wiping away a light sheen of sweat from her forehead. Dave at the very least had the grace not to say anything about her dress, especially not since Jade was wearing an ankle-length skirt herself. Annoyingly enough, she didn’t seem even a little bit winded from their hike. “And you said you were able to find the footprints this morning before school? I have to wonder about how early you wake up.” John leant against a tree and fanned his face with his hand. Dave was actually relatively okay, thanks to his daily exercise with Bro and Dirk.

Jade snorted inelegantly, covering up a goofy grin as she pulled out a compass from her bag and distributed water bottles among their group. Rose and John took theirs gratefully. “I mean, I do usually get up around dawn, but my house isn’t too far from where we are now, so it didn’t take me too long to come out here and make it to school on time.” She paused and looked up with a teasing smile. “Plus, I’m usually a lot quicker on my own.”

“Sorry to slow you down, then,” John grumbled from the side. Jade shot him a worried look.

“That’s not what I meant, John,” she explained in a forcibly patient voice. “Just…I’m used to wandering around on my own? So, it’s easier for me to find my own way than wait for other people who aren’t used to the forest to catch up.”

John waved off her explanation with a smile of his own. “I’m not actually mad, Jade, just teasing!”

Jade pouted. “Oh, you…”

Rose cleared her throat once more, interrupting whatever conversation they were about to have. Dave was pretty thankful, actually; there was nothing more awkward than being caught in the middle of a lover’s quarrel. It was almost as awkward as when Dirk and Roxy managed to get into a fight—there was nothing worse than being forced to pick sides.

“You said we were close?”

Jade perked up once more and examined her compass. “Yeah! I remember, I walked past that bush and I thought, ‘Wow, that bush sure looks like the Isobutane structural formula, you don’t see that every day,’ and I started heading…north!” She closed up her compass and readjusted her bag. “It should be about fifty feet that way,” she directed, holding out her hand and pointing in the direction they needed to head towards.

She also apparently didn’t notice the blank looks everyone was giving her.

“…I don’t know, it looks more like a menorah to me,” John said finally. Jade tilted her head and re-examined the bush.

“I mean, I can see that too, I guess,” she said, shrugging. “I guess I just had chemistry on my mind.”

“Is that the kind of thing we’re supposed to be learning in class?” Dave asked weakly. “Because if so, I’m doing a lot worse than I thought.”

“…I didn’t think our school offered chemistry for freshmen,” Rose observed carefully.

Jade grinned, looking suddenly bashful. “Um. I don’t think they do? I’m just really into nuclear physics, and chemistry seemed like a good first step towards that, you know?”

“Holy shit, you’re a nerd,” Dave murmured in awe. Jade’s blush darkened. “That’s kind of amazing, really.”

“Yes, well,” Rose said, interrupting the conversation. “Shall we continue with our trek?”

“Yes! Of course!” Jade turned suddenly and absconded in the direction they needed to go, eager to get away from the embarrassing conversation. John shook his head with a strangely proud look on his face before following after her.

Rose took another drink from her bottle, took a steadying breath and continued after their classmates with Dave taking the rear. He had his digital camera out and at the ready by now, ready to take whichever picture either caught his fancy or may have been important for their monster hunt. He had his film camera hanging around his neck as well, though at a different height from his digital one so they wouldn't clack into one another. Dave fingered the film camera for in case he found something he wanted a picture of, though he had to be careful about the number of pictures he took. His film one didn't take as many as his digital one.

* * *

When they finally reached the area Jade had found the footprints in Dave immediately began taking pictures of everything, including some of the others in mid-movement. His digital camera was advanced enough that he didn’t have to worry about any blur effects caused by movement, though that would have been a cool effect regardless, leading to some pretty interesting shots. He briefly contemplated using his film camera but decided he didn't want to waste the film. He stayed on the periphery of the area and let his sister and Jade do their examining thing. John came to join him at his side while the girls looked around for the footprints.

“Wow, those are pretty bad,” John said, looking over Dave’s shoulder as he flipped through the pictures he’d already taken on. Some of them weren’t that great, though Dave had a feeling they had different definitions of ‘bad.’

“No way,” Dave said, immediately doubling down on his art. “Take this one here. This is clearly a work of art. Look at Jade’s expression here—you just can’t get that kind of quality on purpose.”

The look John gave him told Dave the dark-haired boy didn’t believe his bullshit. “Uh-huh. What about that blurry one there? It’s not even in focus.”

“Maybe that’s not what I wanted in focus. Maybe,” Dave took another look at the picture for reference, “maybe I meant to have that branch be in focus. Face it, dude, we as a society don’t take nearly enough branch-shots. Trees, sure. What else would Bob Ross paint if not a bunch of shitty trees? Shrubs, maybe, for, like, home/garden magazines. But branches? Nah, that shit’s just fucking underrepresented in landscape art. Where’s the respect for nature? The bravery to push boundaries in film, to—”

“Dave’s bullshitting you, John,” Rose said like the traitor she is. She didn’t even have the grace to look back at them, instead focused on the forest floor. “He takes pictures badly on purpose. It’s his Thing.”

Dave rolled his eyes, not that anyone could tell from behind his shades. “It’s called Irony. You know, the thing I live my life by, sis? You’d think you’d have noticed by now.”

“You’d think,” Rose muttered distractedly, obviously not paying attention to the conversation as she pulled back a branch from a low shrub like it held to answers to life’s greatest mysteries. Rude.

John looked thoughtful, pursing his lips slightly as he continued to look at the pictures Dave had already taken. “So you take them bad on purpose?” He nodded his head. “Makes sense. I don’t think you could get them that bad on accident.”

“THANK-you,” Dave exclaimed. “At least _somebody_ gets it.” He shot a pointed look to the back of Rose’s head. She said nothing and continued her examination of the area.

“Oh, I didn’t say I got it,” John said cheerfully with a grin on his face. “I just said it made sense now that I know you’re doing this on purpose.”

Jade interrupted with an exclamation before Dave could do more than sputter. “Oh! I think I found them!”

Rose was immediately at her side. Her eyes widened comically. Dave didn’t need much more incentive to take a look with his camera at the ready. John followed along, also intrigued.

The group stared at the set of footprints for about a minute without saying anything. The silence was broken by Dave’s cameras working overtime to capture the image from almost every angle he could think of. He took both his usual quality of ironic pictures, including a selfie or two with both cameras, as well as quite a few of ‘actual’ quality that he felt Rose would appreciate more. At the moment, he didn’t care if this whole thing turned out to be an elaborate hoax; these were some quality pictures he was taking, and he was going to have fun this weekend developing them with different filters. He was already brainstorming ways to Photoshop Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff dressed up like discount detectives fumbling over the prints.

With a comically huge magnifying glass, of course. Dirk would appreciate that.

“…what am I looking at, exactly?” John asked, tilting his head to the side. “I know there’s something weird about them, I just…what am I looking at?”

Jade had been right at lunch; they were huge, easily twice the size of a normal adult human’s footprint. That wasn’t the only thing strange about them, though. The prints looked to be an odd conglomeration of human and animal with a human heel and arch with an animal—maybe a dog?—front paw print with eight toe/claws. Jade had a proud look on her face directed specifically at John in a teasing I-told-you-so kind of way. The only time Dave had seen a more self-satisfied smile was on Roxy after she proved to Dirk that a buttload was an actual unit of measurement. John, for lack of a better word, looked confuddled. It looked like his worldview had shifted and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information yet. Rose, on the other hand, looked about as ecstatic as Rose could look with eyes wide and mouth tilted upward in a jubilant smile.

Dave was about only two-thirds sure that their ‘mysterious creature’ was still just a hoax. He was still prepared for the possibility of there being an actual monster, but he didn’t expect that feeling to slowly start to take over the logical parts of his mind. If this really was a hoax, it was a well-made one. He took a few more pictures and looked at the rest of the group.

“So, what now?”

Rose snapped her head back up to stare at her twin incredulously. “I’m sorry— _what now?_ Dave, don’t you see?” She gestured somewhat frantically at the footprints. “We have _actual proof_ of the zoologically dubious! Proof, of Horrorterrors, of eldritch beings beyond our comprehension, of cryptids-!”

“Oh! My cousin loves cryptids,” Jade interjected thoughtfully. “Particularly if they’re blue…”

“Yeah, but he’s weird,” John said distantly, still staring at the prints. “And I think he’s mostly just interested in trying to get credit for finding them, not in the weird monsters themselves.”

“At any rate, it is rather impossible to determine any sort of coloration, blue or otherwise, based solely on these prints,” Rose mused thoughtfully. By this point Dave knew she was fully ignoring anything and everything that wasn’t going to help her find whatever…thing…made the prints. “Maybe if we had a fur or skin sample… Dave, make yourself useful and look around for any other sign of our Mysterious Creature.” Great. Dave could hear the capitalization in her words—now the creature had a name. She’d probably want to keep it now.

Dave turned to John and nudged him in the shoulder. “Hey. Want to help me look around for ‘clues?’ Otherwise, I’m pretty sure Rose’ll find some other bullshit job for you to do.”

John was silent for a moment. He shook his head and turned to Dave, though his gaze strayed back towards the footprints every now and then. “Yeah,” he replied, turning his gaze back towards Dave. “Yeah, let’s…find a monster, I guess?”

Jade, in the background, was gesturing around the area wildly as she spoke animatedly with Rose. “I really think our Mysterious Creature” -great, the name was catching on- “might be able to fly! I looked around for a bit before I left for school, and these are the only prints around, at least that I could see on the ground for about twenty or so feet.”

“—and if we measure the length of space between the two prints we have here, we can approximate the height and stride of the Creature,” Rose agreed eagerly. “If we look at the depth of the prints as well, it should also be possible to determine an approximation of its weight as well.” At least the two girls seemed to be having fun with their “Mysterious Creature.” Which he was only going to call ironically. No way was he going to let his sister have this one.

Dave and John looked at each other and shrugged, heading off to scope out the area for anything ‘strange.’ John quickly regained his cheer and started humming under his breath while the two boys examined the bushes for broken twigs or whatever the fuck it was Rose wanted them to look for. The tune was strangely familiar though Dave couldn’t quite place it at the moment.

“You know,” John spoke up suddenly to Dave. “I’m a little disappointed about our monster.”

Dave rose an eyebrow in disbelief to the background sounds of the girls continuing their exploration, spitting out theories one after the other. Part of him was a little grateful that there was at least one person not willing to call it a Mysterious Creature. “Really. Not exciting enough for you?”

John shrugged, looking at some scratch marks on a tree. They looked like something had brushed against the tree, but other than that there was nothing remarkable about them—no fur, no blood smears, no hint of scales or skin left behind. Dave took a picture of it anyway, even though they didn’t look any different from any other marks on any of the other trees around them. “I guess. Mostly, I think I’d be excited if it were a ghost instead of just some dumb monster.”

“Ghost?” A little weird, but then again. They were currently in the middle of the woods looking around for ‘proof’ of Bigfoot or something. Dave wasn’t going to judge. “Why ghosts?”

John’s face lit up with the biggest, most genuine grin that Dave had ever seen. He was struck for a moment before his classmate opened his mouth. “Because then we’d be just like the Ghostbusters!” Okay, he was going to judge a little.

Dave, having been raised on irony since he left his mother’s womb and entered the greatest irony of all called life, was disturbed to note that there was not an ounce of insincerity in either John’s expression or voice. He stared at John who didn’t so much as twitch. If this was one of Dirk or Bro’s shitty animes, he’d almost expect there to be sparkles around the kid’s eyes. 

“Holy shit, you’re serious. You actually like that…series?” Dave had a few other choice words to describe the trash pile that was the _Ghostbusters_ series but he at least had some tact. It was kind of stupid to insult the guy’s movie preferences, particularly since they were pretty much alone in the woods together. It was frankly impressive in its own way that John apparently genuinely liked those movies without even a hint of irony. A small part of Dave wondered what it would be like to like something without irony being involved in some small way.

John had the most offended expression Dave had ever seen, which was impressive since that was one of the main expressions that the Striders and Lalondes shared, particularly in their more melodramatic moments. “Of course! I mean, obviously the second movie’s the best,” was he serious? “though even that’s not as good as _Con Air_.” John looked contemplative as he pulled aside some ferns to show—gasp!—undisturbed soil. “Well, to be fair, nothing is, so I guess that’s not really fair to other movies, you know?”

Dave chuckled and shook his head in disbelief. His camera hung free from his neck since it was highly unlikely they’d actually find more ‘evidence.’ “And everyone says _I_ have horrible taste,” he mused. John turned indignant so Dave raised his hands in fake surrender. “You’ve seen my photos; you know how I feel about the whole ‘mainstream’ view of art or whatever. I say you do you. If you like those movies, own it.”

John snickered. “Yeah, your pictures kind of suck,” he agreed. He elbowed Dave in the side, accidentally knocking into the film camera and swinging it from side to side. The shutter went off a few times which didn’t really bother Dave. Wild, out of focus photos had their own artistic merit. Dave took an ironic bow in thanks for John’s acknowledgement towards Dave’s art.

“Aww, they’re bonding!” Jade’s voice came from the side. She and Rose stood to the side watching them in amusement. “You’re always telling me to try and make more friends, John. I’m glad to see you’re taking your own advice!”

John and Dave looked at each other awkwardly for a moment, though it probably only felt awkward to Dave. He could see Rose smirking from where she stood. John shrugged and smiled brightly.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right!” Rose’s smirk only grew larger. Dave’s eyes narrowed behind his shades. Two could play at this game.

“It looks like you two are getting pretty friendly, too,” he said nonchalantly. The way Rose’s expression froze up was beautiful, especially after Jade pulled her into a full-body hug. Dave smirked her way in revenge. If there was one thing that Rose was even more awkward than Dave at, though she tried to pretend otherwise, it was receiving any kind of physical affection in any way shape or form.

Jade grinned widely. “This is great! Our Mysterious Creature may have been a bust, but we’re all friends now! I think that’s a good trade.”

John blinked curiously as Dave frowned. “Wait, what do you mean it was a bust?”

Jade released Rose from her grasp to shrug. To Dave’s amusement his sister still had a shell-shocked look on her face though she was trying valiantly to pretend that there was nothing amiss. “Well, you two didn’t find any other proof, or evidence, or anything right?” They nodded in agreement. “We didn’t either. There’s only the two footprints that even show that anything was even there…if it ever was.” She frowned down at the ground, looking upset that there didn’t seem to be any Mysterious Creature out there waiting to be discovered. 

Rose was similarly disappointed. “In the face of an absence of corroborating evidence, it is most probable that our Mysterious Creature, indeed, is a hoax.” She paused for a moment. “This is such bullshit.”

“Such bullshit,” Jade agreed easily, though she at least seemed accepting of the idea. She looked around the group for a moment and gasped dramatically. “Wait. What time is it? Didn’t you all need to be back soon?”

Dave stiffened for a moment and whipped his phone out of his pocket to check the time. John leaned over to check for himself and groaned. “Dad’s going to kill me if I don’t get back soon.”

“Same for us,” Dave acknowledged, locking eyes with Rose. In the face of her disappointment, though, she didn’t seem to be as concerned as Dave was. Not that he visibly showed it, though. Striders had an image to maintain, after all. “We should head back.” He did not look forward to trying to explain to Bro about why they were late if they took any longer. If worst came to worst, he’d have Rose call and explain. Bro tended to be less strict with the girls. Though, what constituted as ‘less’ strict probably wasn’t that much different from normal, anyway.

Jade started packing away her compass and extra water bottles as Dave carefully put his camera back in its carrying bag. John and Rose, being the helpful ones, stood to the side and watched. Jade hefted her bag back onto her shoulders and pointed in a random direction that Dave assumed was back the way they came. “Let’s go!”

* * *

The walk back to the park seemed to pass quicker going back than it did coming the other way, somehow. Despite not finding their Mysterious Creature, their spirits were lifted in some way. Rose and Jade passed the time talking about possible environments for other cryptids and the best ways to go about finding them while John tried to enthusiastically sell Dave on some of his other, more questionable movies.

“Yeah, _Armageddon_ ’s pretty bad, and Bruce Willis tries his best, but Liv Tyler is really who saves the movie for me,” John said animatedly. It was amusing how much he apparently loved disaster movies—both about ‘actual’ disasters and movies that were disasters in and of themselves. Dave did love layers of irony, and was pleasantly surprised that John’s tastes ran the same way…in a sense. “She’s pretty much my favorite actress of all time. Who can hate her?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty hot,” Dave replied easily. “But I don’t know if looks are enough to save that dumpster fire.” John shrugged again, not really having a good response to that. Dave cast around for some other topic, not really wanting to deal with awkward silences. Those didn’t seem to have a place right now. Plus, it was interesting to learn more about his fr—classmate. “So, is your dad super strict or something? You said something about him killing you if you’re not back soon.”

John grimaced but gave a short laugh that came out as a single huff of breath. “Well, sort of. Meal time is just taken really, really seriously at my house.” He gave another laugh with a grin. “For my birthday every year I get about six or seven cakes. I hate cake. So much.”

Dave nodded in commiseration. He couldn’t quite relate to the cake thing—he and Rose only ever had a single cake to share, just like Dirk and Roxy—but he definitely understood parents going overboard when it came to their interests. “That is just way too much cake,” he agreed. “So why go overboard for something you don’t like?”

John gave a considering hum. “I think because my family can’t decide on which cake they want to make? If that makes any sense.” John sent Dave another grin. “I’m pretty sure they just decided, eh, screw it, we’re going to make ALL of the cake.”

Dave tried to think if there was any weird food tradition that his family had for him and Rose. “For our birthday, I usually get a whole gallon of apple juice all to myself that no one else is allowed to drink from.” Dave allowed a small grin to settle on his face. “It’s kind of the best.”

John looked ahead thoughtfully. He turned his head slightly and gave Dave a partially worried look. There was a strange gleam in his eye that Dave couldn’t identify. “Hey… have you ever seen the movie _Little Monsters_?”

“Only ironically,” Dave replied. “Dirk—my brother—and I had a weekend once where we binged on all those really weird eighties movies and critiqued them.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m pretty sure I could make a better one.” Well, for a different definition of ‘better,’ at any rate.

John still had his worried expression. “Maybe, but do you remember what Howie Mandel did with the apple juice?” Dave’s movement halted. He stumbled over a tree root that poked out of the ground. He wasn’t saying what Dave thought he was saying, was he? “…how do you know you’ve been drinking actual apple juice and not someone’s piss?”

Dave gaped at him. “What—no, no, they wouldn’t—” He couldn’t finish that sentence, because the possibility was there. At the very least, it would have—no, only _could_ have, don’t go there—been done ironically. He was about to protest some more when he saw John’s expression crack a bit at the sides into a mischievous smile. “Oh, you _asshole_.” He called up ahead to Rose, who had continued on with Jade, not noticing the crisis Dave was experiencing. “Rose, John’s trying to ruin apple juice for me!”

Rose turned back with a bemused, questioning quirk to her eyebrow. Jade grinned in exasperation, rolling her eyes at John who smiled back unrepentantly. “Yeah, he’ll do that,” she said. “John, stop scarring our new friends for life. I can’t believe I have to be the one to tell you that.” She shook her head.

“Heh heh, sorry!” John apologized with a large grin on his face. He continued walking towards the girls, Dave following along with him. “I couldn’t resist.”

“Don’t you know a man’s apple juice is sacred?” Dave shook his head in mock sorrow. “You are a dangerous man, John Egbert.”

“Yeah, but we had fun.”

Dave remained silent for a moment, thinking. Yeah, he decided. The trip had been fun. He turned to John once more and started rapping about their Mysterious Creature hunt to Rose’s consternation, John’s mild exasperation and amusement, and Jade’s cheerful laughter.

* * *

Dinner that night was quiet, in part because Dave was content to think to himself about which pictures he took that he wanted to keep and which ones were utterly un-savable or boring. He still hadn’t had the chance to check out the few new pictures that were taken at the end yet since he and Rose made it home just in time to set the table for dinner. But that was part of the fun. Developing pictures that you didn’t know what they were was a mystery in itself, and would hopefully prove a better one than their Mysterious Creature had been. The only mystery _there_ was in how they’d managed to get back in time before being declared officially late.

Lil’ Cal was waiting for them in the entrance hall with a comically large clock sitting in his lap. Dave couldn’t help but feel like he’d dodged a puppet bullet.

Rose was also keeping to herself through dinner. He could only guess what was on his sister’s mind, though he had an idea it was probably about whoever had set up their hoax and why. For attention, most likely. Dave was also curious, but ultimately had decided that it didn’t really matter who had done it. He’d actually had fun chasing the unknown with his sister and their classmates. It still felt a little sudden to declare that they were suddenly friends, but they were definitely more than just school acquaintances now.

“Okay, I think we’ve bullshitted enough,” Roxy declared, setting her fork down on her plate a little harder than she probably meant. Dave twitched in his seat, not quite able to fully suppress his jolt of surprise. Rose looked up sharply, also clearly startled out of her musings.

Roxy looked at the two younger twins expectantly. Her eyes shifted from Dave to Rose and back. Dirk was slouched in his seat, picking at what was left on his plate, but he, too, was paying attention to the two younger siblings. Bro, sat straight in his seat and drinking slowly from his glass, was inscrutable as fuck.

“How did your meet-up with your not-friends-but-classmates go? Spill all the deets.”

Dave and Rose exchanged looks across the table. Rose returned her gaze to her plate, daintily picking up a piece of chicken with her fork.

“Ultimately disappointing, I would say. At the very least, our main purpose was for naught,” she took a bite of chicken and chewed carefully. “Other than that, it was fine.”

Roxy stared at her for a moment, clearly waiting for a further explanation. When none came she growled in frustration. “And? Is that it? That can’t be it.”

Dave decided to speak up since Rose clearly wasn’t going to. “We found out about a weird thing in school from a supernatural tabloid. By the way, did you know our town has a supernatural tabloid? Because I sure didn’t.”

“Dave.”

“Right, focus.” He took a drink of delicious apple juice that was most definitely not anyone’s piss. He’d checked the seal and opened a brand new bottle just to be sure. Goddamnit, John. “So, we found out about it from our classmates, we all decided to check it out, and we found some really freaky footprints but ultimately decided the whole thing was a hoax.”

“What was a hoax?” Dave sat up straight in his chair and faced the doorway to the dining room. Mom entered with a sweep of her lab coat and scarf, looking tired but ultimately happy to make it to dinner even if she was fashionably late.

“Mom,” Dirk said, handing her a spare plate while Roxy passed over some of the plates of food. “I thought you were going to be working late.”

“I was,” she said, cheerfully loading her plate with food. “But then it turned out that the minor emergency they were keeping me there for was actually _another_ department’s problem, so I left. What was this I was hearing about a hoax?”

Dave rushed to retell his story. “Rose and I met up with classmates to look for a monster in the murder woods ‘cause we found a story in the supernatural tabloids. It turned out to be a hoax.”

Mom scoffed elegantly. “If it was a story from our town’s tabloids, I’m not surprised.”

Rose tightened her grip on her fork. “It’s still better to investigate such things for yourself instead of blindly deciding something is or isn’t real.”

“True,” Mom mused. “But enough of that. How was everyone’s day?” Rose glared at her plate sullenly. Dave nudged her feet under the table. She always tended to take Mom’s words and actions more harshly than they were probably meant to be. Roxy took the opportunity to launch into a story that happened at lunch between her friends with Dirk throwing in a detail every now and then. Mom offered Bro a smile which he returned with a smirk. Rose continued eating in silence while Dave thought back to his Photoshop project for the weekend. 

There was also school the next morning to think about. He didn’t want to go back to ignoring Jade and John except for the occasional conversation in class about whatever topic they were being made to talk about. Dave also wasn’t sure exactly where they stood, though. Would it be okay to just approach them and start up a random conversation? Would they want to do the same? What would they even talk about, though, without the Mysterious Creature there to provide a common topic?

Well, Dave decided later, as he was getting ready to go to bed, that would be a problem for tomorrow. He’d figure out what to talk about when he saw them, and hopefully, the four of them—Dave, Rose, John and Jade, would start to become actual friends.

* * *

It was close to midnight when Mom started turning off the house lights for the night. She’d already checked in on the kids who, excepting Dirk and his penchant for late night projects, were already asleep in bed. She’d made sure to let her eldest son know he only had another ten minutes before it was lights out completely. Whether he listened was really just a question of how stressed out he was at the moment.

She made sure to add checking on him again to her mental checklist of things to do before bed.

“You going to be up late tonight?”

Roxanne looked over her shoulder from where she was refolding a blanket to put back on the couch over to Derrick who leant against to open doorway. That silly puppet of his was draped casually over his shoulders and offered her a wave. She smiled at him.

“Not too late. I want to check on a few things first, and then I’ll be straight to bed.”

Derrick smirked, snorting lightly. If it weren’t for the fact that they’d been married for almost twenty years and together even longer she was sure she would have missed it. “Only because there aren’t any women waiting for us up there.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “ _Are_ there women waiting for us?”

Roxanne offered her own smirk with a hand on her hip. “Only if you aren’t telling me something.”

“Nah. Just puppets.”

She shook her head with a fond smile. “Off with you, then. Oh,” Roxanne remembered, stopping him before he left, “can you check on Dirk for me? I told him to get to bed soon, but you know how he is.”

Derrick shrugged and started for the stairs. “I’ll tell him I’ll shut off the power to his room if he’s not in bed asleep in the next five minutes.”

“Thanks, darling,” Roxanne murmured, looking over towards her favorite statue of Zazzerpan the Learned. He was a challenge to keep the dust off of, but he was worth it. She approached the wizard statue that took up a fairly large portion of the front entrance. Roxanne gazed up into the marble eyes of Zazzerpan and sighed. This was going to be a long night, or at the very least it would feel like one. She ran her hand down the stone carving of his robes, pressing on the indentation where one of the stars on his robes was. Seamlessly and noiselessly the statue slid back on its pedestal a foot or so revealing a set of stairs that led down.

Roxanne walked down, barely hearing the statue move to seal up the entrance once more. Hopefully she’d be finished soon and could finally make it to bed for once at a reasonable hour.


	2. Going to the Movies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a semi-successful trip to the woods, Dave and Rose meet up with their new friends at school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday, Dave! I got you friends!
> 
> So, you may have noticed it's been six months since I put up chapter 1. You may have also noticed that this story will have about 128 chapters to it. Those two things are indeed related. Also, I'm in Grad school. So that's a thing.
> 
> By far, though, the thing that stopped me from writing this chapter was me trying to figure out how to have Dave make Jade think he's cool.
> 
> On a separate note, I have also edited and updated the first chapter to add in a few details that weren't really important the first time around, mainly to provide a little more detail like Jade having strings tied around her fingers. Nothing really major, and nothing that actually changes the outcome of the chapter.
> 
> Enjoy chapter 2! Also, yes, I will be including quotes and song lyrics at the beginning of chapters. These will mainly be about friendship, because like the MSPA Reader-san in Hiveswap Friendsim, I have a burning need for friendship.

Joined at the hip, yeah your sidekick needs you/  
Life is a trip down the road that leads you/  
Look all around at all the mountains you haven’t climbed/  
It’s just a matter of time, before we learn how to fly/  
Welcome to the rhythm of the night/  
There’s something in the air you can’t deny—When Can I See You Again?—Owl City

* * *

School the next morning didn’t start the same way it usually did. Dirk had somehow overslept his alarm, blaming it on a power surge that threw his clock off by several hours. This led to the older teen hogging the shower which caused them to leave for school later than they usually did.

On the way out the door Dave was sure that he saw his brother glare at Bro in passing, muttering “I was _asleep_!”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the problem this morning,” Bro commented blandly, closing the door after them.

“Stop glaring at the door and get in the fucking car, Dirk!” Roxy called from the car. “We’re super late enough as it is!” With one last glare Dirk slunk into the passenger seat, barely getting the door closed before Roxy started to back out of the driveway.

“I don’t think you need to worry too much,” Rose said calmly, eying her sister carefully. “We should still make it in time for homeroom.”

Roxy’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Yeah, but I have plans to meet up with friends first.” Despite her words the car didn’t appear to be going any faster than a few miles above the speed limit. There’d been a string of car accidents in the area lately, though luckily nothing too serious. Their sister didn’t appear to want to take any chances either way. “We’re trying to get the science club started up again and they want me to be president. Rothstein’s not going to be very impressed if the president’s late for the meeting to see if we can get started _before we’ve even started_!”

Dave winced. While he hadn’t had the upper level science and physics teacher yet, he’d heard stories about Dr. Rothstein. The guy’d managed to get a PhD but had only managed to get a job teaching high school science; he apparently never let anyone forget he was smart enough to work for NASA, and looked down on anyone he thought wasted his time. Dave had only seen him in passing in their school but he could already tell that the guy had ‘arrogant douchebag’ written all over him.

It also didn’t help that apparently Rothstein had it out for his sister. Dave wasn’t sure why, considering Roxy made good grades and had a genuine interest in the subject. Usually the people he’d made his contempt known for were slackers who didn’t care about school in general, let alone upper-level sciences.

Dirk frowned in the front seat and stared straight ahead. “…anything you want me to do?”

Roxy sighed, loosening her grip on the steering wheel by a tiny margin and offering him a tired smile. “Build me a time machine to make it there on time? Shit, maybe one of those mind-control rays to make Rothstein a decent human being for once?”

Dirk’s lips twitched. “I’m afraid that’s outside of my skill set at the moment,” he said dryly. “Ask me in a few months.” Roxy laughed.

“Then, I dunno. Maybe stand off to the side in the hallway in a shadowy place behind me and be my silent backup?”

“Much more manageable.”

By the time Roxy had calmed down enough to stop clenching the wheel between her hands, the school was looming up in front of them. Dave stared at the building for a moment while his sister parked. He mentally shook himself and offered Rose a shared look that she returned with a slight smile and an eye roll. No doubt, she was already mentally diagnosing him as ‘over-eager,’ but she had no proof. Dave cast one last look at the building and stepped out of the car.

* * *

Dave walked to his locker with Rose. She had a composed look on her face, though he could see a tightness around her eyes as she forced herself not to look around the busy hallway. It was nice—vindicating, almost—to know that his sister was just as excited and nervous as he was to see their new friends again. Dave’s sunglasses thankfully allowed him to eye his passing classmates without being noticed. He didn’t spot any tell-tale glasses and buckteeth combinations, however.

He was in the middle of taking his books and notebooks out of his locker when one of Rose’s friends came over to drag her into another conversation about academic prose, or iambic pentameter, or whatever it was that theater kids talk about. He left her to answer in curt responses that the other girl—Michelle—didn’t seem to notice and left to make his way back to the entrance hall of the school. With any hope, he’d be able to meet with John and Jade before class and…talk, maybe?

Exactly how did you interact with someone you only knew peripherally until a day ago, and then spent a few hours searching for non-existent monsters in the murder woods with? There were no manuals to this sort of situation; Rose would have researched that shit if there were. She would have had that fucker down on lock, would have probably taken notes, written an academic paper with parenthetical citations, footnotes, correct bibliography and all that insane nonsense. Peer reviewed and everything. Hell, her paper would have probably (almost definitely) been longer than the actual manual. She, like everyone else in their family, tended to get wordy when it came to explaining things.

Then again, for all Dave knew, she had read that manual, written that paper, and was instead waiting for him to blunder into a new social situation so she could record his ‘progress’ in interacting with his fellow peers. She could have even had Michelle stop her at her locker for an excuse for Dave to go off on his own, only to be spied upon later. It was the sort of thing his sister liked doing, or at the very least liked threatening to do. Whether she’d actually do that, though, he didn’t know. And he wasn’t so sure he liked not knowing what she’d do in a situation like this.

Then again, she’d seemed pretty pissed off in a Rose kind of way, so maybe not.

Banishing thoughts of his twin’s hypothetical psycho-social experiment out of his head, Dave looked around the hall for any sign of the two people he was looking for. Despite Roxy’s worries, they’d still arrived earlier than most of the other students. Unless John and Jade managed to get to school super early, he was sure to meet them when they arrived.

What he hadn’t counted on, however, was for his friends to find him first.

“Dave! Yo, did you check out the trailer for the new Tony Hawk game coming out?” Diego asked, slinging an arm around Dave’s neck in a side bro-hug before releasing him just as quickly. Dave had a moment of panic, thoughts of _puppet limbs wrapped around his neck_ and _Bro promised, he said he wouldn’t anymore_ before the question registered in his mind.

“What? Shit, no, when’d that come out?” 

“It dropped last night,” Roy said as he approached them. “Tried to text you about it yesterday, but you didn’t respond.” Had he? Dave had only really used his phone as a clock to check the time with yesterday. He had a distant thought of remembering moving past a message saying he had a text on his way to check the time but hadn’t paid it any mind.

“Did you?” Dave asked, scratching the back of his head. “Must have missed it. I was out doing things with Rose; you know how she gets when I try talking with her while on the phone. Won’t shut up about how I’m already having a conversation, where do I get off thinking I can talk to two people at once.” He was rambling, as he tended to do sometimes. Very rarely, of course. Rambling was uncool, and as a Strider Dave was the epitome of cool. He was also pretty sure he’d never mentioned Rose having a problem with him using his phone before, but his friends all nodded sagely nonetheless. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

His friends ended up pulling him into a conversation about what they thought the new Tony Hawk game would be like. Dave managed to spy Jade coming in the doors shortly before they had to leave for homeroom. She made eye contact with him and offered a large, friendly smile and wave before hurrying off to her own classes. Judging by Rose’s grumpy stare in homeroom she hadn’t managed to get away from Michelle, either.

And that was fine. There was still time left in the school day, Dave told himself. It wasn’t like they only had this one chance to talk to John and Jade again. He had Jade in Math class right before lunch, and he was pretty sure Rose had John in her English literature class. Plus, he was pretty sure they all had gym together, though they wouldn’t have that class until tomorrow. If, for some reason, they couldn’t talk during lunch then there were at least other classes to look forward to—not that he’d ever look forward to Math, ever, under any other circumstances.

Besides, Jade had looked happy to see him again. Any worries that he had about meeting up with her or John again were completely unfounded, and they were probably looking forward to talking to him and Rose just as much as Dave was. Striders didn’t get worried, anyway. At most, they anticipated. Just like how Dave was anticipating John and Jade looking up at him when he sat with them at lunch with twin looks of distant confusion, wondering what the hell he thought he was doing trying to talk with them all of a sudden just because they had a fun afternoon hike together once. Where did he get off thinking he could all of a sudden act like they were all suddenly friends now? It would just be silence at the table as they stared at him until he walked away, metaphorical tail between his legs and probably an uncool shuffle in his walk.

The only thing that really kept him from full-on panicking and just deciding screw it, he’ll eat lunch by himself in a bathroom like a loser, is that he saw that Rose was having her own internal freak-out.

It was subtle, but Dave could see the way his twin would glance at the clock in the classroom every so often and bite her lip, how she would straighten out her skirt, how she would rearrange her pens and pencils on her notebook in a nervous habit. 

Feeling like the cool twin for once, which was complete and utter bullshit because he was a Strider and therefore automatically the coolest person in the room, he nudged her in the side and raised an eyebrow over his shades. Rose flinched and narrowed her eyes at him before focusing back on the teacher. She still offered him a small smile when she glanced at him from the corner of her eye, though.

In his head, Dave was already composing a speech to tell her about how she wasn’t projecting her anxieties properly, which was why she was instead using the objects around her as an outlet for her internal discord. Her fidgeting was merely her apparent chosen method of trying to re-exert control in a way that let her combat her perceived lack of control of the situation. Already, Dave was summarily squashing that thought and throwing it away in a bin marked ‘Psycho-babble-do-not-look-on-pain-of-breaking-your-brain.’

He really needed to stop letting Rose read to him from her new psychology books at night.

* * *

Dave had Math class right before lunch, which opened up the possibility of walking there with Jade after class. They didn’t sit next to each other in Math. He hadn’t really noticed her much before in class other than thinking of her as the new kid at the start of the semester. Now, though, he was starting to wish he’d thought to try talking with her before.

As it stood, Jade sat in one of the front rows while Dave sat near the back, about three rows behind her and four seats to the left. Approaching her at the beginning of class seemed a little…sudden, particularly since they’d never interacted in class before.

Dave entered the classroom and paused, torn between heading towards his seat like normal and trying to strike up a conversation with Jade. The bespeckled, energetic girl was already in her seat and opening up her notebook for class having been one of the first students in the room when Dave got there. There were maybe three or four other classmates sitting around in various stages of preparation for algebra and quadratic equations. He wondered why he’d never really bothered to pay attention to his classmates before, or even tried to get to know them. His friends usually took up all of his time, but none of them were even in this class with him.

Really, there was nothing stopping him from getting to know everyone else better.

Jade chose his moment of hesitation to look up in his direction, locking his gaze with hers. She smiled wide and Dave took that as a signal to go over and talk to her.

“Hey Dave!” she said, clearing off space on the edge of her desk for him to sit down on. “When’s your birthday?”

“Uh, December third,” he said, thrown by the random question. “Why?”

“Well, duh, I want to get you something then,” Jade replied, rolling her eyes. “But I’m so excited, though, mine’s December first! That’s so cool that our birthdays are close together, don’t you think?” She continued on without letting Dave get a word in. He was okay with that, though, if a little overwhelmed. Mostly he was just curious what else she had to say. “John’s the odd one out, though; his birthday’s not until April. Hey, does Rose have the same birthday as you, or were you born on different days?”

“Different days,” Dave said, puffing his chest out some. “I’m the older twin; she was born on the fourth.” He was a little surprised that she’d asked, though. Most people assumed that since they were twins he and Rose were born on the same day. It really blew people’s minds when they found out that they shared the same birthdays as their older twin siblings—after all, what were the odds of that happening? Dave was sure Mom had told him the odds once, but that had been a while ago and he usually stopped paying attention whenever she went all Science! on him.

“Hmm,” Jade murmured to herself, eyeing Dave. “I wouldn’t have guessed. Rose seems more like an older sibling to me, I guess.”

Dave snorted, watching more classmates stream into the room around them. Class would be starting soon, but they still had some time to talk. “Yeah, everyone always says that. She absolutely _hates_ being called the baby of the family.” Jade covered up a snort of laughter of her own.

“Yeah, I can see that,” she laughed. “Guess you’re just too cool to be the baby, then, huh?”

“Without a doubt,” Dave agreed, nodding his head slightly. He sat up straighter. “Shit’s chilled to below freezing, that’s how cool I am.”

“Sooo cooool!” Jade squealed. Dave suppressed a smile at her reaction. It was always nice to see someone acknowledge his Strider Coolness, though of course he couldn’t acknowledge their acknowledgement. It took some effort to reach his levels of irony and coolness, but it came natural. Dave was literally born to be this cool; shit was just genetic that way.

The bell rang for class to begin, cutting their conversation short. Almost without realizing it the class had filled up with students. Dave offered Jade a fist bump and headed towards his seat. The only thing that kept him from hiding his face in his math book for the rest of class, other than it just wouldn’t be cool, was his new friend happily returning the fist bump with a look of awed concentration. He wondered if that was maybe her first ever fist bump.

* * *

Lunch was, thankfully, not nearly as awkward as Dave had anticipated. He walked towards the cafeteria with Jade, listening as she happily started showing him pictures of her dog on her phone.

“His name is Becquerel, though I’ve always just called him Bec. He’s pretty much just a big goof-ball, though he’s also pretty protective of me,” Jade explained, showing picture after picture of herself playing with a mammoth-sized pure white dog. Surely there was just something wrong with the camera’s perspective—there was no way a monster dog that big actually existed, right? Jade continued on as they walked through the cafeteria doors. “You have no idea how hard it was to convince him to stay on the island when I left! I thought for sure he’d follow me onto the boat, but so far I haven’t seen him, so I guess he’s still there?”

“You don’t know for certain?” Dave asked, grabbing a tray in line. Jade grabbed her own tray after him. “Did you leave him on an abandoned island all by himself? Actually, were you on that island all by yourself before moving here?”

She snorted, waving off his concern with one of her brightly colored hands. There was a story behind all of the colored string on her fingers, he was sure. “No, that would be silly. Oh, no meat for me, thanks,” she addressed the cafeteria worker behind the counter, who rolled their eyes and skipped over the mystery meat. That was probably a good call on her part, Dave mused. “I lived with my Grandpa, his sister and her grandson. Grandpa’s usually away, though, on some adventure somewhere and Grandma Jade—yes, they named me after her, don’t say anything mister!—keeps busy with her robots. Jake’s kind of like a cousin, or brother to me. Remember, I mentioned him last night? The one who likes cryptids?”

“Yeah, I think I do. But only if they’re blue or something?”

Jade giggled. “That’s just something John heard about once and won’t let go. But, yeah, that’s him!”

By now they were through the lunch line and had paid. The cafeteria was slowly starting to fill up but there were still plenty of places to sit. Dave was looking around to see if he recognized anyone when Jade grabbed his arm and started pulling him towards the table they sat at yesterday. She was surprisingly strong for her size.

“Come on, I see John!”

John was already at the table from yesterday, digging into a sandwich he had brought from home. As they got closer, Dave was surprised to see that the sandwich looked professionally made and was accompanied by a small container of potato salad, some fresh fruit with a separate container for cottage cheese, and a few chocolate chip cookies also packed away in their own container. Dave hadn’t noticed if John had had a similar lunch the day before, but the way everything was laid out before him seemed to suggest that fancy homemade lunches was normal for him.

“Dude, do you have your own personal chef or something?” Dave asked as he sat down. Jade cheerfully sat next to him and gave John a playful look.

“His dad might as well be,” she answered for John, whose mouth was full of sandwich. Dave was just glad he’d decided not to answer with his mouth full, though John did roll his eyes at them before swallowing.

“If it’s not my dad, it’s someone else in my family,” he sighed. “I’ve heard only bad things about school food, so I guess I’m grateful to have my own, but I’ve never actually had school food before…” He eyed Dave’s plate with curiosity. 

“I’ll trade you,” Dave immediately said.

“You’re not missing out on anything, I assure you,” Rose said at the same time, setting her own tray next to John’s. She gave Dave an amused look that immediately made his defenses go up. “You beat me to lunch, Dave. You must have been eager.”

“What? No, who’s eager? Don’t read anything into it,” Dave replied hastily. “I have Math with Jade and we walked here together. She told me about her monster dog. You should hear more about her monster dog, Rose.” He took a large bite out of what looked like mashed potatoes to stop himself from saying anything else. No one could make him say anything now, Dave was eating, come back later.

John laughed, nudging Jade who blushed delicately. “Wow, you already showed him pictures of Bec?”

“Oh, don’t give me that look, mister!” Jade said, pointing her fork at the dark haired boy. “Like you wouldn’t show off pictures if you had a pet, too!”

“Oh? What does your dog look like?” Rose asked politely, leaning over to get a better look at Jade’s pictures. “And ignore my brother. He thinks any dog larger than a Pomeranian must be a ‘monster’ dog.”

Dave forced himself to swallow his mouthful of food to defend his honor and reputation. “You’re only saying that ‘cause you haven’t seen the pictures. Right John?”

“He _is_ pretty big, Jade,” John mused. “And judging from some of the stories you’ve told me…”

“See, Rose? There are stories.”

“Stories which I’m sure you have not yet had the chance to hear.” Rose flipped through some of the pictures on Jade’s phone with a smile on her face. “He’s lovely, Jade.”

“ _Thank you_ , Rose,” Jade replied. “And the only stories _you’ve_ heard, John, were taken wildly out of context!”

“I’m not sure how much more context is needed for ‘he disappeared once then reappeared literally right in front of me with a fresh loaf of French bread in his mouth.’”

And considering Jade apparently lived on an island with only herself, her dog, and some apparently busy people…

“…where did he get the bread from?” Dave asked dumbly.

Rose latched onto a different part of the sentence. “He reappeared right in front of you? How do you mean?”

Jade shrugged with a mouth full of school food. Dave quietly held a moment of silence for her taste buds. “He’s a weird dog. I don’t question him much,” she answered after swallowing.

Rose, disappointed at not receiving an answer she found satisfying, also took a bite out of her lunch. The awkwardness that Dave had been anticipating finally made itself known as silence fell over the lunch table. The girls were focused on their lunch while John seemed to be deep in his own thoughts as he idly picked at what was left of his sandwich. Dave could only sit there and poke at his own lunch with a fork, almost willing it to gain sentience and attack. Anything would be better than the silence they all had apparently decided to allow to exist like they were all some kind of group of pagan gods who only existed to bring forth as much awkward silence as possible. What a lame pantheon.

So much for their lunch meet-and-greet.

Dave was just about at the point where he would have started rapping or babbling about anything that caught his eye when John broke the silence with a cheerful grin and suggestion.

“Hey, after school, do you all want to go check out the new Nic Cage movie?” John smiled. “I’ve been wanting to see it for a while, but I’ve never had anyone to go with. And Dad won’t let me go by myself, so I thought it’d be more fun with more people.”

It was almost like he hadn’t noticed anything awkward had taken place.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Dave immediately seized on the chance to continue the current conversation. “Aw man, dude, I can save you the trouble. Nic Cage’s character’s probably going to be some misunderstood guy who’s actually very capable at one specific thing, no one’s going to listen to him, and then he’s going to save the day through some contrived series of events.” Dave paused a moment when he saw John’s eyebrows start to furrow. “I’ll definitely go see it with you, but just don’t expect me to change my mind.”

“Oh, you’re on!” John exclaimed. “Now I have to find you a good Nic Cage movie. It’s going to be hard, since there’s so many, but I’ll do it just to prove you wrong.”

“Well, that’s as good a reason for me to come along as any,” Rose spoke up next to John. To Dave’s chagrin, she had a pleased, teasing smile on her face. “I’m always interested in seeing my brother proven wrong.”

Jade rolled her eyes. “You know, you could have asked me to come with you any time,” she pointed out to John. “But you’re right, it would be better to see it with everyone!” Jade’s eyes narrowed, teasing. “We could always ask your Dad to help us sneak in homemade movie snacks, too.”

“You act like he or my Nanna wouldn’t do that anyway,” John rolled his eyes in return.

Rose smiled at the table. “Well, that settles that, I suppose. What time should we meet up?”

John pulled out his phone to check movie times while Rose helped narrow down when she and Dave would be free. Dave sat back to watch his sister and new friends converse, offering his own thoughts every now and then in a jumbled, rambling mess that caused Jade to laugh so hard once she almost spat her drink out. There was just something about this scene before him that Dave found irresistible and hard to ignore. He’d had plans with friends before, of course, but usually those were either to just hang out at his house or to hang around the old skate park on the other side of town.

He tried to think of the last time that he went to go see a movie, dumb or otherwise, with anyone other than his family. He couldn’t. Dave then tried to think about going to the movie theaters with his other friends and couldn’t quite make the connection.

And that was alright, Dave decided as lunch came to an end. His other friends were different; they played video games together, sort of, and tried to teach Dave how to skateboard so he could finally show up Dirk and Bro. His new friends, Jade and John, were the movie-going kind of friends. The kind of friends to hang out with when he wanted a laugh, or to solve a fake mystery together, or some other Scooby-Doo kind of shit.

He had different friends for different parts of his life, and there was nothing wrong with that. People did that all the time. Like, work friends, or friend-friends. Okay, that last one sounded bad, especially if Dave was placing his other friends in the role of ‘school friends.’ Just, Dave had friends for different things.

And yeah, even though he was only just starting his friendship with John and Jade, Dave felt like he could trust them with more things, or talk with them about things he couldn’t with his other friends. But there was nothing wrong with that, Dave told himself as he collected his things from his locker for his next class. His friendship with John and Jade was just starting; of course he would do different things with them than he would with his other friends. It didn’t mean anything.

Absolutely nothing.

* * *

When the bell rang for the end of the school day Dave didn’t power walk to his siblings’ car in the parking lot this time. He met up with John at his locker on the way out of the building and chatted for a brief moment to make sure they both had the correct movie time before he left for home. He also made a conscious decision to _not_ ramble under his breath on the drive back, though apparently this gave him a look of deep concentration on his face.

“…do I want to know what’s up with your twin this time, Rosey?” Roxy asked, glancing back through the rearview mirror.

Rose sighed in exasperation but didn’t answer. She shook her head slightly but gave a fond, exasperated look in Dave’s direction. She turned back to stare out the window of the car as they passed by a few small, family-owned businesses and a large sign advertising Skaia Labs. For in case anyone in town happened to forget exactly who owned and operated the large science facility on the edge of the county, apparently.

“I’ve long since decided that it was futile to try to understand Dave’s mind,” she finally said. “Not that I’ve stopped trying, but I’m hardly an expert. I doubt that Dave is one either, actually.”

“Ha ha,” Dave said flatly, still staring out the window. “Also, we’re going out to see a movie with friends later.”

“Would these happen to be the same ‘friends-not-friends’ from yesterday?” Dirk asked.

Dave’s face grew warm but he kept his face schooled. “…Maybe.”

Roxy hummed from the driver’s seat. “First a meet-up at the park, now plans to see a movie together? Sounds awfully friendly to me.”

Thankfully Rose decided to take the opportunity to spare Dave from answering anymore, having noticed how clearly uncomfortable he was with answering anymore questions. This was exactly why she was his favorite. “That still remains to be seen. If anything, I would consider this a trial friendship while all parties decide what we want out of this potential relationship in a medium that is neutral enough that no one feels uncomfortable.”

Dirk tilted his head in a nod. “Makes sense, I suppose. When do you think you’ll be back? And do you need a ride?”

“That would be lovely, thank you, Dirk,” Rose replied happily. “Our movie is set for four-thirty and should let out at around seven.”

Dirk glanced back to the rear seat at Dave and Rose. “Have you told Bro or Mom about this yet? Because they may not let you go on a school night.”

“And you’re both too young to be sneaking out of the house yet,” Roxy joked.

“I doubt Bro cares that much,” Dave spoke up as they pulled into the driveway. “As long as our homework’s done and we’re back before ten it should be fine.” He’d have to be the one to ask Bro, since their weird family pretty much divided up with Bro looking after Dave and Dirk while Mom looked after Rose and Roxy. His parents still looked after their other children, of course, but ultimately it was Bro who raised the boys and Mom who raised the girls. 

Rose seemed to sense Dave’s interest in the current subject waning once more. As they exited the car she struck up a new conversation topic with Roxy. “How did your meeting about the science club go?”

“Not as terrible as I thought it would,” Roxy admitted, locking the car behind her. Dirk stared her down until Roxy tossed the keys towards him with an amused huff. “Fine, fine, you can drive them to the movies, whatever. Anyway, Veronica Mayweather is a god-send. She looked up the school’s regulations for starting up a new club before school today, and…”

* * *

Strangely, Bro agreed easily enough to let Dave and Rose out to see a movie with friends. Dave didn’t expect it to be too difficult, but he was still surprised he didn’t have to bargain too much. Because Bro was a middle-aged ninja puppet master he somehow knew that there was a science test coming up for both Dave and Rose that week. Dave just had to promise that they would both get at least a B on the test or face… _training_.

Whatever that meant. Dave wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Rose mused in the car ride to the theatre that perhaps it was just Bro’s way of psychologically manipulating them into earning good grades with the threat of punishment based solely on what they themselves conceived in their minds.

Dirk, from the driver’s seat, tilted his head in thought before agreeing that that would be a good way of making sure they took school seriously while still maintaining distance from parenting directly.

Dirk was most like Bro, so it was no surprise that he could figure out what their father’s motivations were. Rose, unlike Dave, also tended to take after Bro’s thought processes. Dave was just content to have a fairly straight-forward, if somewhat insincere, thought process. There were layers of irony, which Dave breathed like air, and then there were layers of psychological manipulation that Rose took to with ease. At least she seemed happy, mostly.

They reached the movie theater with time enough to spare getting snacks and drinks. He didn’t see John or Jade waiting outside for them, which was probably just as well. Dirk let them out a fair distance from the entrance to the theater but he still didn’t want anyone seeing them be dropped off by one of his older siblings.

That shit was still too embarrassing to be cool, especially with his older siblings’ shared station wagon. It was like a combination of being let out to sports practice by their Mom and being dropped off to a play date. There was just no way of maintaining dignity or cool kid cred.

“I think I see them in line inside,” Rose said before waving off their older brother. They had to promise to text him as soon as the movie let out before he left but thankfully he didn’t make a big deal out of it.

“Sweet,” Dave answered. He headed straight to the ticket station to pay for his and Rose’s tickets. They had barely stepped a foot inside the theatre itself when a dark blur ran over to them and squeezed them both into a bone-crushing hug.

“You made it!” Jade exclaimed cheerily. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it in time for the trailers.” She released them, letting Rose stumble slightly as she tried to regain her footing. Dave was used to sneak attacks from his family, whether from hug attacks from Roxy or Mom or puppet attacks from Dirk and Bro, so he managed to stand his ground valiantly.

John walked up behind them with a smile on his face betraying his excitement for the upcoming movie. “Great, you’re here! Did you get your tickets yet?”

“Right here, my dude,” Dave said as he held them up for inspection. John’s smile grew wider. He tightened his grip on a large purse that obviously didn’t belong to him.

“May I ask why you have a purse, John?” Rose asked with a quirked brow and smile. Jade, standing next to her, giggled.

“If anyone asks, it’s Jade’s purse,” John said. He leaned conspiratorially towards them and gave an exaggerated wink. He did, at least, lower his voice so they wouldn’t be overheard. “I brought snacks and drinks. I have a couple different popcorn types and chocolate bars, and a few types of sodas. Let me know which ones you want when we get our seats, okay?”

Dave smirked and led the way to the ticket taker. “Gourmet popcorn’s not going to distract me from Nic Cage’s bad, bad acting, bro.”

John laughed as he started in on the finer points of Nicholas Cage’s acting, as well as reviews he’d heard about the movie they were seeing. All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon, Dave decided.


	3. Anticipation of Things to Come

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Dave meet John and Jade at the library to study for their science test. New discoveries are made that have nothing (barely anything) to do with science.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Christmas Eve! At least, it's still Christmas Eve where I am. Two chapters in one month; I'm doing a lot better than last time :D
> 
> Also, apparently I decided to have a theme in Rose's intro chapter. *shrug*

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant."—Robert Louis Stevenson

* * *

It greatly amused Rose to see and hear other people talk about her twin as if he was some incomprehensible, stoic exemplar of a teenage boy. Incomprehensible, sure, but she had a feeling that most people did not use that descriptor in quite the same way that she did in relation to her twin. Dave was surprisingly easy to read, once you’ve known him for a while. And as his twin, Rose supposed that she had to admit that she had a fairly unfair advantage over everyone outside of their family.

Then again, Rose doubted that most families both communicated and bonded over analyzing other people’s expressions for meanings within meanings. They all had their own tells, and each person in her family hid their true intentions behind different veneers of obfuscation.

Her mother and Roxy tended to pretend that everything was ‘okay’ one way or another whether they really felt that way at all. Roxy in particular was fond of using the guise of a ‘party-girl’ to cover up her personal thoughts and feelings, while their Mom tended to default to a bizarre combination of modern day working woman mixed heavily with a housewife ripped straight from a black-and-white television program from the 1950s.

The quote unquote ‘men-folk’ of their strange and, admittedly, ‘incomprehensible’ family covered their inner thoughts and feelings through heavy layer after heavy, irritating layer of insincerity housed under a term of ‘irony.’

Rose once bought her father a dictionary that had the passage for the definition of ‘irony’ highlighted. He gave no response afterwards and had no noticeable change in demeanor after, either. Rose could only conclude that he had either not bothered to look through the book for her actual intentions or had instead decided to ignore her completely. She wasn’t sure which decision would have been preferable, but either way she felt that she had lost some type of… _incomprehensible_ …battle between them.

And Rose hated losing.

Dave, on the other hand, was different when compared to the rest of their family. She would not dare say anything about it to his face, since she also knew how sensitive he pretended he wasn’t. If anything, the lack of having to ply through so much bullshit made him easily her favorite family member; Rose was sure that many people attributed this to the fact that he was her twin, had shared their mother’s womb for nine months and shared their lives together for thirteen years after, but if anything it was the ease he put her through that made him outrank the other members of their family.

Their family was complicated in the same way that Rubik’s cubes, word and number puzzles were complicated. Difficult to solve for those who did not have the patience, luck, or intelligence to sit down and work out, though once you knew the ‘trick’ figuring out their hidden meanings came easier. Dave, on the other hand, was a crossword puzzle. He was all words put into specific meanings at specific angles that had their own meanings on their own and formed a complete picture (of a sort) once put into the correct order amongst the other words in their groups.

Truthfully, Rose was just grateful that she had at least one person she could be reasonably certain wouldn’t try to lie or mislead her, particularly if it was ‘for her own good’ or out of sport. Dave would be honest with her, whether he realized it or not. The rest of her family…

…well, Rose was not entirely sure about them.

Which brings her to at home before school the day after watching an admittedly fairly amusing movie with her twin and their new friends. They had an upcoming science test looming at the end of the week and a ‘deadline goal’ of achieving at least a B on the test. Bro had lain out his terms for allowing Rose and Dave to leave for the second day in a row after school to participate in extracurricular activities with their classmates. All he asked was that they make a passing grade…however.

Their Mom was a scientist at Skaia Labs. There was no way either he or their Mom would be okay with them making anything less than an A, particularly after Roxy managed to re-start up the Science Club at school, and as its president no less.

Rose was reasonably confident in her grades in science, and Dave’s were passable as well. She also knew, however, about her twin’s pathological need to make sure that Bro was proud of them and that, more relevantly, they did not face his ‘punishment’ for a bad grade.

She was reasonably certain that their father’s form of ‘punishment’ would not be nearly as bad as what Dave thought it would be, which was also something she was sure Bro was banking on. Rose could admire the psychological complexities involved in assuring this type of outcome, but she also felt responsible for her twin’s well-being, both physically and mentally.

Therefore, Rose set out to plot the best way to trick her brother into studying together for the test. Dave liked to study on his own, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Dave had a habit, however, of distracting himself with whatever caught his eye. Rose had secretly tested her twin once a few years ago to determine if he had had any learning disabilities. Out of everyone in the family, she reasoned, she was the most qualified to conduct such a test particularly since their parents did not seem to find it prudent to have their son tested themselves.

To her consternation, Dave did not seem to have any more difficulty focusing on tasks than did anyone else in his age range. Rose comforted herself with the knowledge that, since she herself was only seven at the time she had arranged the secret tests, there was the possibility that she had missed something due to her inexperience. With practice Rose was sure that she would surely be able to acquire more accurate data.

And, well, non-invasive psychological tests never hurt anyone. Dave no doubt suspected that she performed psychological tests on him and their family regularly, though he had yet to call her out on it. Rose determined that up until he actually said anything about it she had tacit permission to run her tests with free reign.

But back to the matter at hand.

“What do you think I should do?” Rose asked her cat Jaspers as she slipped her books and notebooks into her bag. Her hand hovered over her copy of her grandmother’s newest novel for a moment before deciding to take it with her as well. “There’s multiple ways to go about this. The first is to just tell my brother. I’m not sure how he would take my suggestion, though, and while documenting his response would be scientifically interesting I am more interested in sure results. My second option is to trick him, which Dave would also not like but only if he finds out.”

Rose turned to Jaspers, watching as he licked a paw noncommittally. There was something fascinating in trying to parse her cat’s moods. Right now, however, she needed some form of advice. Noticing that he was being watched Jaspers stood up, stretched, and walked over to rub up against Rose’s leg. He meowed once and reached up, kneading at her leg twice.

Rose blinked and bent down to pet Jaspers with a vague look on her face. “Hm. A third option, then?” She contemplated her options. “I suppose our new friends could be of some assistance. And it would be a good method of bonding without unnecessarily upsetting Dave. Yes, I suppose that could work after all. Excellent advice as usual, Jaspers.”

Jaspers yawned and left the room.

* * *

Lunch time seemed to be forming a new routine. Rose and Dave sat with Jade and John once more and talked mostly about the movie they had seen last night. Rose was particularly amused that her brother and John hadn’t run out of things to say about it already considering they spent close to a half hour doing so after the movie let out. She and Jade exchanged fond, exasperated looks and commented every now and then between John comparing Nicolas Cage’s performance with his past movies while Dave did his level best to perform acrobatic mental leaps to be as insincere about everything he was saying as he could.

Close to the end of the lunch period Rose decided to put her plan into play partially because the conversation was starting to annoy her.

“I have a proposition,” she said, catching the table’s attention.

“No, I will not be best man at your wedding with John,” Dave said immediately. “Plus, isn’t it kind of awkward just announcing that at lunch like this? I would’ve thought you’d want some kind of build up before declaring your undying love like that. Also, what’ll our parents say? Bro’ll have to swordfight either John or his Dad for your honor, and I just know you’d rather do that part yourself. Don’t you realize your actions are tearing our family apart? You’re thirteen, way too young to be married off like a Middle Ages peasant, and you just know John’s only going to say yes because of your dowry. That’s not true love. You can do better, Rose, I know it.”

John, thankfully, merely laughed at Dave’s speech. “Yeah, and we barely know each other! I don’t think my dad would be okay with me coming home and saying I have a fiancée now. Not that I’m not flattered, though, Rose!”

Jade took one glance at the look on Rose’s face and burst into giggles. “Okay, boys, I’m pretty sure that’s not what Rose meant!” She gained a mischievous look, no doubt due to John’s influence. “Plus, you totally have to have me as either a bridesmaid or flower girl! I refuse to not have at least _some_ part in helping out with John’s wedding.”

Rose’s mouth twitched into something that was most definitely not a smile. _I wanted this_ , she told herself. _I wanted friends._ She did not expect them to be this amusing, even if it is at her expense.

“What I was going to say,” she said evenly just to spite her brother. She knew for a fact he was trying to get some reaction out of her. Her brothers and father weren’t the only ones in their family who knew how to utilize a proper poker face. “Is that since we all have a test coming up in science this Friday we should all probably study and go over the material together. I propose a study session after school at the library if everyone is amenable to the idea.”

Jade tilted her head with a look of contemplation on her face. “That’s not a bad idea,” she said. “I was homeschooled up until this year so sometimes I still have trouble figuring out exactly where I am in the curriculum compared to everyone else. Plus, it sounds like fun! You can count me in!”

John shrugged and agreed easily. “I don’t really have anything else going on, so sure, I’ll come too. Maybe it’ll be fun.”

Jade snorted and lightly shoved him in the shoulder. Rose hid a wince as John rubbed his shoulder. “That, and your dad keeps trying to get you to leave your room for once!” she teased.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Rose turned to Dave to figure out what his decision would be. Her brother wasn’t an idiot; he could no doubt figure out for himself that this was Rose’s plan to get them to study for the test. With John and Jade agreeing so easily there would be no reason for him to say no except out of some misguided notion of wanting to be contrary. Dave tended to only agree with Rose’s plans out of last resort. Considering his pride inherited and taught from Bro, Rose could imagine him deciding to disagree just because Rose suggested the plan.

She was hopeful, though, that the inclusion of their new friends combined with his subconscious desire to both please and impress Bro would tilt the scales in her favor.

Dave, with nary a change in expression, also shrugged in agreement. “Sure, why not? We’re going to have to study anyway, might as well have fun with it.”

Rose hid a pleased smile. It looked like things were starting to go as expected.

* * *

It was easy enough convincing Bro to take them to the public library in the next city over. The hardest part was figuring out where they were all meeting since the lobby was strangely busy at that time in the afternoon. Instead of leaving to pick them up later Bro declared he’d stay until they were ready to leave since “it’ll be a pain in the ass to leave and come pick you up again later.” Bro took one look at the lobby and immediately headed over to the computer bay that allowed visitors to look up whatever it was they were looking for. Knowing their father, Rose guessed he was either going to look up machine and robotics, knives and swords, or the history of puppets.

And of course Bro had brought along that puppet of his that scared Dave. Not that Dave would ever admit it, though.

Her twin stood to the side, back straight and deceptively at ease. Rose had the feeling that she could have poked him in the shoulder and Dave would have toppled over to the side with how rigid he was standing. Rose clicked her tongue. Bro really did bring out the worst in Dave, though whether that was intentional was unclear.

Again, Rose cursed how _incomprehensible_ her family could be, especially toward one another.

Rose tapped Dave’s shoulder and pretended to not be startled by how quickly he whirled around to face her. Instead she tilted her head towards where the stairs were.

“I believe we promised to meet them upstairs near the conference rooms,” she said. “If you’ll go and meet them there, I’ll reserve us a room we can study in.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dave replied. “Just leave me to my lonesome. When John and Jade get here, they’ll ask me ‘hey, where’s Rose?’ And I’ll have to tell them oh, sorry, she didn’t take rejection that well and decided to flee the country. Then I’ll have to reassure John it wasn’t his fault, he had the right to say no, and no, he and Jade aren’t bad friends, this kind of thing just happens sometimes. Until she gets back, though, I’m here for both of them in their time of need.”

“So in your scenario I have not only fled the country because my fake marriage proposal was rejected but this is also apparently a regular occurrence for me,” Rose surmised, taking the moment to enjoy their usual back and forth banter. “And on top of that, you have decided to take my place for both John and Jade, what was it, ‘in their time of need?’ Dear brother, I wonder if I should really join you after all if you apparently want to take over my marriage proposal and include both of our new friends.”

Dave froze for a moment and started his usual string of denials. “What? No, you’re totally twisting my words around. I’m pretty sure it’s you that wants them both.”

“And yet I can seem to make it through an entire conversation without bringing up marriage,” Rose countered wryly. “I do have to say that I’m at least surprised that your fascination with dicks hasn’t made an appearance yet. Or are you planning on saving that for a special occasion?”

“Rose,” Dave said seriously. “Dicks should always be saved for a special occasion. Now stop distracting me and grab our study room or whatever.”

She smiled and strode over to the front desk. After a brief conversation, signing of forms, and pointing out Bro among the shelves in the reference section to show that she did have at least one guardian with her, Rose was handed a set of keys for one of the smaller study rooms. The librarian at the desk explained that they were usually reserved for groups of college students, though since midterms and finals were still a good ways away the rooms were open for any member of the public to use for a duration of three hours. If their group wanted to use the room after that time period, Rose would have to come back down to sign in again.

Rose assured the librarian that they would more than likely be finished by then and proceeded to head upstairs.

It took a few minutes to find her friends (and didn’t that term still send a warm thrill through her). Their group had decided to gather around a display stand that showed off a large globe with lights spread around that indicated major cities in the world. As Rose approached, she overheard Dave declare that _this one spot_ was definitely about where their town was located.

“I don’t know, Dave,” John murmured, keeping his voice down since they were in the library proper. “I’m pretty sure we’re a little more east of that river…maybe over here?” He pointed to another space that was maybe a few inches away from Dave’s suggestion.

Jade, who had been examining another section of the globe, gave a sound of hushed excitement and pointed at a small land mass in the middle of the ocean. “Guys, guys! I found my island!”

“I have to admit, I have been curious about where you originally hail from,” Rose admitted, walking slowly over to Jade’s side of the globe to get a better look at the island. Compared to some of the other islands scattered around the Pacific Ocean her island was rather miniscule. Rose wouldn’t have given it a second look had Jade not pointed it out. Dave and John crowded around them to get a better look for themselves.

Jade smiled cheerfully. “It was a pain to find a boat that would take me over to the mainland, but once I got here it wasn’t too hard to get a plane ticket to take me to Skaia.” She stared at the globe for a moment. “Hey, John, remember picking me up from the airport? That was a mess.”

John snorted good naturedly. “I’ll say. It took four hours to find you since you kept wandering around. And your phone died! If you hadn’t texted when your plane landed, I would have thought you’d taken the wrong flight.” He smiled as an idea came to him. “Then I would have had to trace your steps to find out where you ended up, and maybe even sneak on board another plane to save you! That could have been cool.”

“Excuse you, I have an excellent sense of direction,” Jade replied. “ _You’re_ the one who kept walking around! I found your dad quickly enough, but you refused to stay put so we could find you!”

“And you’re the one who kept getting distracted by all the different shops!” John laughed. Rose had the distinct impression that she was being left out, and she didn’t like it.

“So…I take it you two knew each other before Jade moved here?” Dave asked. The two bickering friends blinked, seeming to realize they had an audience.

“Yeah, John and I started Pestering each other on PesterChum about…gosh, maybe five years ago?” Jade shrugged. “He’s the one who convinced me to move here for high school at least.”

“I figured it was better than staying on that island pretty much all by herself,” John added. Jade sent him a look that was too quick for Rose to decipher accurately.

Before things could get too off-topic, Rose raised the study room key. “Well, I believe I speak for my brother and myself when I say that we’re both happy you decided to move to Skaia, Jade. For now, though, we should probably start studying.”

John quirked a hand in a sloppy salute complete with a mischievous smile. “Lead the way, captain!”

“Oh, no, dude, don’t give Rose power,” Dave complained as he, John, and Jade followed Rose over to the study room. “She’ll let it go to her head. She’ll decide that we’re her mere peons who have to obey her every command because she thinks she knows better. Soon enough we’ll have to stage a rebellion, and I don’t know about you two, but I actually have to live with her. Do you know how awkward the ride home will be? I’ll have to explain to Bro that, yes, I did overthrow Rose and sentence her to the guillotine, what of it? She clearly had it coming.” They closed the door to the room behind them and started spreading their school things around them.

“I happen to imagine myself as a benevolent ruler,” Rose spoke up as she carefully arranged her notebook and pencils. “But, for the sake of our grade, I suppose I shall have to yield to a democratically elected government.”

Dave shook his head. “That’s all I ask, Rose. And no shadow governments, either.” Her brother could be so melodramatic sometimes.

For most of the following three hours their study session was rather productive. Their section in science was covering earth and plant matter with a particular focus on geological and seismological events. Their science books were passed around freely and if anyone had a question over any of the material the others did their best to answer while checking against their textbooks.

It was while Rose was trying to memorize the different types of volcanoes and their causes and characteristics that it happened. One moment Jade was in the middle of explaining about the volcano (inactive, thankfully) that was located on her island and the next thing anyone knew she had slumped over on the table, unconscious.

Dave stood up immediately. “What the fuck just—”

“Aw, crap,” John said, also standing up but without the sense of urgency. “Not again.”

“Again?!”

“Yeah, um. Jade has narcolepsy,” John explained as he carefully tilted her head to the side and brushed away her hair from her face. “She’s been to the doctor about it, and has tried medication and taking regular naps, but sometimes she just…falls asleep anyway. She’ll be fine after a fifteen or twenty minute nap.”

Rose frowned sympathetically and furrowed her brow. She knew the symptoms of narcolepsy and knew the most advised techniques in how to treat the disorder. Knowing intellectually and actually experiencing first hand were two entirely separate states, however. “Is there anything we can do for her in the meantime?” Dave hovered behind her seat, arm outstretched but also at a loss on what to do to help.

John shrugged. “I guess help me make sure she doesn’t drool over everything? And if anyone has anything to eat or drink for her.”

Rose remembered passing a vending machine on the way to find her friends. The library was strict about the places where you were allowed to eat and drink, but luckily the study rooms were a place where it was allowed as long as they didn’t make a mess of everything.

“I passed a vending machine on the way here,” Rose said, standing up from her seat. “I’ll get her a water bottle and something to snack on.”

John glanced her way, grateful. “Great, thanks. Jade doesn’t fall asleep like this a lot, but when she does…”

“I understand,” Rose smiled, though this was the first time that something like this had happened around her. There was no way she could understand except intellectually, and even then Rose wasn't sure how much she truly understood. She had her hand on the doorknob. “In the meantime, I’m sure Dave would be happy to help you out if you need anything.”

“Yeah, dude, whatever you need,” he was quick to agree.

Rose left before she could hear much more of the conversation.

She deliberated in front of the vending machine for a few minutes, trying to remember if there were any special dietary needs that those with narcolepsy had to watch out for. For a moment, Rose cursed herself. She had thought she knew enough about non-degenerative disorders but it appeared her knowledge was lacking. She planned to research everything her books could tell her about narcolepsy later at home.

For now, Rose determined that a small bag of pretzels shouldn’t hurt much along with the bottle of water.

Rose was walking back to the study room, ignoring the accusing looks the librarians were giving her, when she spotted a rack of periodicals. Normally she would have continued walking past since she did not have any interest in magazines or newspapers generally but one title stuck out to her. Upon closer examination, it was the same publication that Jade had brought to school that Monday to show John the article about their Mysterious Creature.

 _Cassandra’s Testament._ There were about five back issues on the rack. Rose remembered what her Mom had said about the magazine and hoaxes. _“If it’s our town’s magazine, I’m not surprised.”_ Rose didn’t believe in taking anything at face value. There was always at least a grain of truth hidden in everything. The real trick came from figuring out which was the truth and which was just story added in later for entertainment. And if there was any source out there that would inform her about the oddities that were, according to the featured article on the newest issue, _“proliferating around town”_ it would most likely be the magazine dedicated to such occurrences. If nothing else, she could appreciate the magazine’s word choices.

Rose bit her lip and grabbed the first two issues of _Cassandra’s Testament_ on the rack to take back to the study room with her. She had a feeling that they were pretty much done studying, anyway.

Inside the study room Jade was still asleep. It would have been cinematically appropriate if she had managed to wake up while Rose was out, but real life never worked out that well. All in all, Rose was probably only gone for about ten minutes, if that.

John and Dave had been in the middle of a conversation about something or another when Rose appeared. John gratefully took the water bottle and pretzels from Rose to set down next to their friend. Dave raised an eyebrow at the magazines Rose brought back with her but elected not to say anything. Rose raised an eyebrow at him anyway, sure that he would not take the challenge. She turned to John after carefully examining Jade for anything out of the ordinary.

Amusingly, Jade had a smile on her face even when she was asleep. That was dedication, which Rose could respect.

“How is Jade?” she asked, though she didn’t expect much to have changed.

John shrugged and sat back in his seat. “Good, I think? Same as the last time this happened when I was around, at least.” He looked at their sleeping friend in contemplation. “If I wasn’t so sure she’d punch me for it, I’d totally draw a mustache on her face right now.”

Dave snorted and also leaned back in his seat. “You might be able to get away with it if we all don’t say anything, but you’d have to risk it. Jade seems kind of no-nonsense, and if she’s been friends with you for years she might know your tricks by now.” He seemed calmer than when Rose left; perhaps whatever he and John had spoken about had eased things for him. If so, Rose would have to ask her new friend for pointers. She knew she intimidated her twin. About half the time Rose used that to her advantage; the other half, though, deeply worried and depressed her. She would never do anything that would willingly harm Dave and had hoped that he knew that. If there was some way to make Dave more at ease around herself, or at the very least if Rose learned how to calm him down when he started to get really stressed she would count it as a blessing.

Absolutely nothing was allowed to hurt her brother. Even herself, though that was harder to manage at times.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Rose interjected. “How long has Jade suffered from narcolepsy?”

“Fuck, Rose, you don’t just ask someone about someone else’s mental health like that,” Dave said. “That’s shady as fuck. Like, hey, I know we just started to hang out and all, but do you mind telling me all about your shitty health problems? I won’t be able to do anything about it, but I read a lot of psychology books so I think I can anyway.”

If Rose hadn’t known her twin her whole life, she’d probably be upset and even a little offended by Dave’s insinuation. As it was, though, Rose knew that Dave was just nervous and instead tried to lash out and belittle the situation to try and mitigate any potential hurt feelings on their new friends’ part. The fact that his target to lash out at was her was…unfortunate, but perhaps understandable. His words still stung at little, though.

Her options were to either confront her brother, in front of their new friend, and inevitably get into an argument that would no doubt reflect poorly on them both, or Rose could ignore the obvious barb and instead bring in a spot of levity to an otherwise heavy atmosphere. Considering their current mental states as well as the state of their new friendship with both John and Jade, Rose decided to engage in the latter option.

“And here I was, thinking I could learn more about my new friends while also learning more about the fiancé who cruelly rejected and forced me to flee the country,” Rose said dryly, flipping a page in one of her borrowed magazines. She’d discovered that interacting with skittish potential friends, and twins, was much like interacting with her cat when he was in a skittish mood—don’t make direct eye contact and pretend you are involved with something else. They will immediately feel safer and more at ease while allowing you to continue interacting with them. It had to be on their terms or not at all, in these situations.

Rose wasn’t terribly patient, but she could be when it came to something important.

As she’d suspected, John snorted and smothered his laughter behind both hands. Dave’s mouth quirked into a smirk, appreciating the continuation of their joke. Jade, still unconscious, did not respond except for a brief twitch at the corner of her smile. Rose wasn’t sure if it was possible for someone to laugh in their sleep, but if anyone was capable she was starting to believe that it just might be Jade.

“Pft, it’s alright,” John said when his giggles died down. “We’d probably have told you both sooner or later, anyway. From what we can tell, she might have had it before she left her island?” He shrugged. His expression showed mystified confusion though he was making a valiant effort to push past it. “She was only really diagnosed with it when she came here.”

“When there were more people around her to really take notice, I would guess,” Rose surmised.

John tilted his head, conceding the point. “Probably. Jade said she mostly had the island to herself since her other family were usually either busy or off doing something else. She also said that, usually, if she was tired she’d just go to sleep anyway, so we think that she might have had it before but just hadn’t really noticed.”

“Huh,” Dave said. “That sucks. But, like, how do you not notice someone having narcolepsy, though? Wouldn’t you notice if, say, someone just suddenly fell asleep when you were in the middle of a conversation? Or would you just think, man, I must be super fucking boring if people are literally falling asleep while I’m talking.”

John frowned. From his expression, Rose surmised that he’d probably had the same thought already. Clearly he cared for Jade, that much was obvious. Rose could understand being upset on the behalf of someone else if you didn’t think that they were being treated correctly, or even well at all.

Before he or anyone else could say anything more on the subject, Jade suddenly shot up in her seat wide awake.

“I’m awake!” she said in case anyone had missed the obvious. John immediately hugged her and released her just as quickly.

“Great! We’re pretty much done studying, anyway, so have something to eat and drink!”

Jade blinked owlishly at all three of them and glanced down at the water bottle and pretzels in front of her. “Um. That’s okay, I’m not really that hungry…” she tried to demure.

John gave her a flat look. “Really. You’re telling that to me? You’ve _met_ my family, right?”

“Yeah, plus Rose went on an epic quest to the vending machine while you were out,” Dave added. “She had to fight through hoards of angry librarians who wanted to make her pay fines for actually buying the stuff that they have on sale. And after making it through that bout of hypocrisy, she then had to collect all of the crystal shards so she could make the magic MacGuffin needed to restore peace to the five kingdoms, three oceans, and seven planes of existence. All without dropping anything. Don’t let her sacrifice be in vain, Jade. Don’t put that on her.”

Rose smiled at her brother, amused. Jade and John laughed in the background. “So I’m a magical girl now? I suppose getting rejected wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me today.”

“Rose, you definitely have a magical girl transformation sequence,” Dave told her seriously. “You start of in a pirouette, though not off the fucking handle, that’s only for the really important boss fights, and then you waggle your eyebrows like you do sometimes when you try to make me uncomfortable—like that, yeah—and then you start stroking a cat. Why Jaspers is there now, I don’t know, but I guess if you’re going to be a fucking magical girl the least you could do is have a goddamn animal companion. Can’t start cutting corners with this shit.”

“Otherwise I would run the risk of being accused of being only a discount magical girl,” Rose agreed. “No one would take me seriously and my credence would be in question.”

Dave said, “Most people just say cred, but you do you.”

They were interrupted by another snort of laughter. Jade poorly tried to hide her smile, though Rose was thankful to see she was at least starting to snack on her pretzels. John tried to steal one from the bag but she swatted his hand away with an accompanying eye roll.

“You two are too funny!” Jade declared.

Rose and Dave exchanged amused looks. “Glad to be of service,” Dave answered for them both.

“So anyway, what magazines did you get, Rose?” John asked as he nibbled on a pretzel he’d managed to sneak away. Jade peered over, curious, and perked up when she saw the titles on the periodicals.

“Oh! _Cassandra’s Testament_! That’s the same magazine I showed you before, remember John?”

Dave, apparently emboldened from their successful conversation, gave Rose a deadpan look. Rose returned his look with a look of her own, challenging him to say something. He took up her challenge. “Really, Rose? I thought finding out the Mysterious Creature was a hoax in the murder woods would’ve gotten rid of your desire to find more hoaxes. There can’t be that many ‘mysteries’ in our shitty town, anyway.”

Rose sniffed, indignant. “And exactly which part of my personality and hobbies led you to believe that I would give up so easily when there is the unknown to explore?”

John slid one of the magazines over to his side of the table to flip through casually. “I’m kind of with Dave on this one. Skaia can’t be _that_ supernaturally mysterious, can it? And how did you even find out about this magazine, Jade? I’ve lived here longer than you have, and even _I_ didn’t know this…” he checked the magazine title “… _Cassandra’s Testament_ or whatever was even a thing.”

Jade smiled and shrugged, clearly unconcerned. She leaned over to read over John’s shoulder. “When I first moved in I had a few magazines and newspapers send over a free copy to try to get me to subscribe. This one seemed interesting, and I thought Jake would like hearing about some of the weirder stories in here, so I decided to subscribe.”

“I don’t see what would be interesting about this crap, but if you like it then, you know, have fun I guess,” Dave said. He may have been wearing sunglasses with a straight face, but Rose still caught him reading over her shoulder as well.

She hid a smile. “Well, for starters, did you know that our town has a history of mysterious lights in the woods?” She could see the workings of a grimace on her brother’s face and decided to find something that might actually interest him. Even she had to admit, though, that those ‘mysterious lights’ were probably somebody’s headlights on their car. “Oh. Here’s an article about a homestead that disappeared about ninety years ago.”

That gave Dave pause. Even Jade and John looked up from where they were bickering quietly about whether the cairns Jade had seen hiking in the woods were the same ones mentioned in the article they were reading and whether that meant signs of fey activity or ghostly apparitions.

“What, like, the house just straight up disappeared?” Dave asked. “Doesn’t seem that special. Maybe the people living there moved away and decided to take their house with them.”

“In the 1930s?” Jade asked skeptically. “Unless they were ridiculously rich, and even then, they probably wouldn’t have been able to afford that.”

Rose skimmed the article quickly. According to the article’s author—Penelope Craven, who also seemed to be the magazine’s editor—the La Lumiére family had been hit just as hard as everyone else in the area by the Great Depression. One day their house, barn, and workshop seemingly disappeared over night, as did the occupants of the homestead. The only thing left behind were the charred remains of what had been a chicken coop and woodshed, leading many to believe that a great fire had swept through the area burning the buildings, and the inhabitants, away into oblivion.

Rose related the information to her friends and sat back to think. She didn’t think that that was the whole story. Even ninety years ago, there would have been some kind of evidence left behind if a fire had taken place like the ‘official story’ claimed. Surely neighbors would have noticed a fire that large? And wouldn’t there be some kind of evidence of human remains? And why would the official story note charred and burned remains of some buildings but not the other, presumably much larger, buildings?

Rose had many questions about this particular story. So, too, did Penelope Craven apparently. Craven was highly skeptical of the facts and even noted some personal issues that the patriarch of the La Lumiére family had with other prominent members of Skaia at the time. Rose wasn’t quite sure if she believed the theory that aliens had anything to do with the disappearance of the homestead that Craven presented, but there was still much more to learn before making any kind of conclusion.

She was startled out of her thoughts by a knock at the door. To her gratification, Rose noticed that she wasn’t the only one startled by the sudden noise. Dave flinched while John and Jade both nearly jumped out of their seats. They looked at one another and exchanged nervous laughs.

“Sorry to bother you, but this is a member of the library’s staff. Your three hours are almost up and if you want to keep studying you’ll need to come sign in at the front desk again. Otherwise, we’ll have to ask you to return the key to this room.” The library staff didn’t wait for a reply and left.

“They, um. Must be busy today, I guess,” Jade suggested weakly, clutching onto her water bottle. Rose for a brief moment had a fear about Jade’s condition and stressed before rational thought caught up with her. Jade didn’t seem like her health was affected any differently than the rest of them, merely still startled from the interruption after hearing about an old town mystery. John, who knew her best, didn’t seem too worried, either.

He offered their group a smile and a light-hearted chuckle, glancing once at the marker board behind them. “Do you think I should leave a message? Maybe Bloody Mary three times?”

Dave snickered, which was new enough an experience that Rose forgot her retort to instead stare at her brother. He wasn’t usually so open with other people, including her. It seemed that John and Jade were good for him.

“Pretty sure if you do that they won’t let us back in anymore,” Dave said. “And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not explain to my parents about why I was kicked out of the library. Or if we have to be, don’t you think it’d be better to have a kick-ass story instead, like we got caught drawing dicks on all of the reference books, or Jade let loose an army of chinchillas, or Rose challenged the head librarian to a dual at dawn and I was her second? Anything but little kid pranks.”

“And drawing dicks on books doesn’t qualify as a ‘little kid prank?’” Rose asked. She stood from her seat and started putting her school things away back in her bag. The others followed suit after a brief argument over whose science book belonged to whom. 

Dave shook his head. “Dicks are universal, Rose. They belong to us all, don’t try to copyright them.”

Rose rolled her eyes and opened the door to let everyone else out ahead of her. Jade giggled and bumped against Dave’s side.

“Whatever you say, Cool Kid.” Dave looked back at Rose with a triumphant smile. Rose returned it with a patronizing one of her own. Yes, yes, someone found her brother to be ‘cool.’ She was sure Jade would learn better soon.

Rose returned her borrowed magazines to the rack she found them on and followed her friends to the lobby. John checked his phone and saw he had a message from his father, who was apparently waiting outside to pick him and Jade up to take them home.

“We’ll see you tomorrow!” Jade exclaimed cheerfully, hugging both Rose and Dave goodbye. She ran out the door, ignoring the scolding tone of a librarian telling her not to run indoors.

John turned to them with a crooked look that clearly said ‘what can you do?’ “Yeah, it was fun hanging out. Thanks for not being weird about Jade and her…you know.” Rose gave him a patient smile.

“There’s no need to thank us,” she said.

“Yeah,” Dave agreed. “We didn’t do much, anyway. Just let us know if there is anything we can do later, though. Don’t want to come across as a couple of insensitive assholes or anything.”

John smiled wide, making his front buckteeth more noticeable. “Don’t worry about that. It was fun, even with the whole…yeah.” He checked his phone once more and swore under his breath. “I’d better go, though, or my Dad won’t be happy. We’re having enchiladas tonight, and he insists on making them all from scratch.” John tilted his head, his gaze distant and considering. “I’ll invite Jade over, make sure she eats something good for dinner.”

Dave furrowed his brow. “She lives alone, right? Is she okay with that?” Rose had been wondering the same thing.

John sighed explosively. “She says she is, and I guess I believe her. I try to have her over at my place as much as I can, and my family loves her, so it’s not an issue.” He furrowed his brow as well. “I tried to get her to move in with me, so she wouldn’t be alone, you know? But she wouldn’t listen, and there’s not much I can do about it.” He shrugged and pulled his back pack up higher on his shoulder.

“I have to leave now, though. I’ll see you guys tomorrow!” John’s exit from the library was only moderately more graceful than Jade’s had been though he had a librarian scold him for running as well.

That left Rose and Dave standing in the lobby by themselves. Rose looked towards the reference section where she’d last seen Bro hours earlier but it looked like the elusive man had moved since then. She turned to Dave.

“Well, we should probably try to locate Bro so we can head home ourselves,” she told him.

Dave sighed and straightened his stance. “Yeah, guess we’d better. Just ask a librarian if she’s seen a grown man with a puppet on his shoulder. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

After another ten minutes of searching and caving in to ask a librarian, they finally located Bro and were on their way back to their house. Bro kept his conversation to a minimum, as usual, leaving Rose and Dave to fill him in on how their study session went.

“So, yeah, we’re totally going to ace the test,” Dave concluded. Bro tilted his head slightly in what could be considered a nod. Rose knew his lack of reaction was driving Dave crazy despite his stoic demeanor.

Yet another incomprehensible being in an incomprehensible family. And now, with an incomprehensible town mystery. Rose had to admit, if only to herself, that she tended to like the incomprehensible—at the very least, if there was a definite endpoint and a goal of her own choosing to achieve along the way.

She and Dave had both decided to keep what had happened to Jade to themselves. There wasn’t really a reason to tell Bro, and there definitely wasn’t anything he could do about the situation. Rose, on the other hand, wasn’t satisfied with that. Her hobby, which she had been contemplating perhaps eventually turning into a profession, was starting to seem more and more useful. Rose wanted to be able to help people. Her family was surprisingly open about most things but tended to be closed off over anything that might be important. Rose was self-aware enough to recognize that she shared similar traits which fueled her want to help people.

She knew firsthand how difficult it was to open up to others, to allow others in and allow them to be in the position to help. Rose wanted to be able to make the first move. She would offer her help to any who needed and wanted it, and to those who didn’t want it she would be available for any time they decided they did want her help.

While Jade hadn’t explicitly said that she wanted help, Rose considered herself a good friend. This meant she would need to look up everything she could about Jade’s condition so that if some trouble ever did come up she would be in the position to provide the best assistance she could.

Rose, above all else, hated feeling powerless.

“I have a lot of reading to do, tonight,” she mused as she stared out the window of their car.

Dave slid a look her way. “Well that sounds ominous.” She could have imagined it, but she thought she saw Bro smirk in the rearview mirror.

They passed the sign advertising her Mom’s workplace, SkaiaLabs. Rose thought about the article she’d read, about the scientific explanation given for a phenomenon that, at least on the surface, seemed unscientific. She thought back to the thrill she’d felt at the chance to discover the unknown, about how excited she’d been when she found learned about a potential Mysterious Creature. She thought about how disappointed she’d been when she and Jade had been left with no choice but to declare their Mysterious Creature a hoax, about how instead of resigned and accepting Rose had instead felt a greater determination well up within her to discover the secrets of the world around her.

 _Yes_ , she thought as she gazed out the window once more with a smile on her face. _I certainly do anticipate finding an omen to the unknown._


	4. Bingo Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Dave are invited to Bingo Night with Jade and John

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...
> 
> Look, I don't know how this chapter got so long. My chapter notes for this were literally "Jade invites them to Bingo Night--it becomes a thing--Rose reads up on the missing homestead."
> 
> But then Rose decided she wanted to develop her background more, and then this happened. *shrug*
> 
> Also, don't mind the OCs. They're only there to fill in the scenery, don't bother remembering names or anything.

“Fighting for my trust, and you won’t back down  
Even if we gotta risk it all right now  
I know you’re scared of the unknown  
You don’t want to be alone  
I know I always come and go  
But it’s out of my control  
And you’ll be left in the dust  
Unless I stuck by ya  
You’re the sunflower”—Sunflower, Post Malone, Swae Lee

* * *

“Hey, did Jade ask you to Bingo yet?”

Of all of the conversation starters she could have received that morning in school, Rose had to admit that she wouldn’t have thought that that would be the one John decided to lead with. Perhaps ‘hey, wanna pull off a prank with me’ or even ‘hey, could you hide me; some people didn’t like the prank I just did.’ Those seemed like more his speed. She paused in the middle of retrieving her English notes and looked over her shoulder at her new friend. John peered at her curiously, obviously waiting for some kind of answer.

“I was not aware that Bingo was the usual activity of choice for people our age,” Rose answered instead. “Not the least of which, I wasn’t aware that Jade partook of the intricate art form that is legalized gambling hybridized with what could best be known in laymen’s terms as ‘activities for the elderly.’”

John laughed. “Yeah, I didn’t think she’d like it either, but here we are,” he shrugged his backpack higher up onto his shoulder. Rose closed her locker and headed off towards her English class. As it turned out, she shared this particular class with her newest friend as well.

Rose didn’t often walk to classes with friends, or even those who called themselves her friend. It was…nice. She could perhaps better understand those coming of age novels Mom tended to enjoy for some unknowable reason. Rose was sure it was because her own children were ‘coming of age.’ Perhaps she was researching and comparing the fictitious teenagers of those books with her own teenagers. All Rose knew was that Mom had better not expect any of her children to try to become Prom Queen, unless it was either Dirk or Dave for ‘the ironies.’

“ _I_ think since Jade was raised by grandparents she must have somehow absorbed a love of grandparent-ly things,” John continued, blissfully unaware of Rose’s private aside.

Rose tilted her head in contemplation. A smile played along her lips. “That is an interesting hypothesis. But, pray tell me how Jade came to be in possession of a Bingo game.” Rose was imagining the typical little spinning cage-ball that contained the little balls with letters and numbers on them. She was imagining trying to convince Dave to not spin the cage around as fast as he could to see if he could fire the Bingo balls around everywhere. She was imagining the pure chaos and destruction the four of them could easily get up to if left to create their own game of Bingo. The possibilities were endless.

“Well, it’s not so much that she owns the game, since she doesn’t, but she goes to this weekly Bingo-night-slash-potluck-dinner-thing on Thursdays and she said last night that she was thinking of inviting you and Dave to come.” They entered the classroom and waited for the bell to ring. As usual, the classroom had a bust of the Bard himself in one corner while a wooden podium stood at the front of the classroom. The walls had various posters advertising various classics, a few diagramming sentence structures and grammar, and one that even broke down iambic pentameter.

According to the poster, the song “Shake it Off” by Taylor Swift is in iambic pentameter. Who knew?

Rose thought over John’s words. Their science test was tomorrow and she felt reasonably confident in how much they had studied at the library the day before. She was content with how much she had studied in general. After returning home, Rose had researched everything she could on narcolepsy. She was by no means an expert, but she had the feeling that she’d be able to conduct herself a lot more professionally if something came up again now that she’d researched. This Bingo Night at the very least would be a good opportunity to check in with Jade to see how she was doing. Perhaps more importantly, this seemed like a good chance to learn more about her new friends. Jade’s condition came out of nowhere. Rose wasn’t sure if John had something similar, or if there were more secrets her friends were hiding.

Friends told each other everything. That was something Rose believed in and only partly out of how much the trope was shoved down the throats of the consumer masses. She was determined to prove herself as a good friend. The fact that the potluck part of the event would mean less trouble for her family overall was merely a plus.

The fact that it was her night to set the table for dinner was merely coincidence.

“I’ll give Jade a proper reply when she asks me,” Rose told John.

John grinned. “I’ve only been once or twice, but I’m sure it’ll be fun with all of us there. Well, at least more fun than it was with just me and Jade. Plus, you know, free food that my family didn’t make. That’s always a plus in my opinion.”

And once again, John’s mysterious—or at the very least _interesting_ —family makes an appearance.

“From what I’ve been able to tell your family’s cooking is supposedly above average,” Rose commented. She tried hard not to let on that she was paying close attention to John’s expressions. He didn’t appear to notice. “If you get to eat so well every day I have to wonder why eating a stranger’s potluck dinner would be preferable.”

John snorted and rolled his eyes. “Well, there’s your answer. It’s all I eat, every single day. My family has connections to a baking empire, so they tend to take cooking in general very seriously.” He cracked a grin and winked at Rose. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but I don’t really take that much seriously at all.”

“I have noticed, yes,” Rose answered dryly but with a smile of her own. The tidbit he'd slipped about his family-a _baking empire?_ \- was something she would have to bring up later, at a more opportune moment. Conversation came to a halt around them when their teacher swept into the classroom, saying that they had a million things to do that morning and hyperbole was only one of them!

Rose wondered why her school was so fond of puns and wordplay.

* * *

As John predicted, Rose and Dave had barely sat down at lunch when Jade happily asked them if they had any plans for that evening.

“This is for that Bingo-night-thing you were telling me about earlier?” Dave asked. Considering they had the class before lunch together it didn’t surprise Rose that he had already heard about everything. “If so, I don’t think we have anything…Rose?”

She confirmed their free plans. “I’ll inform Mom and Bro that they have two less mouths to feed for dinner tonight,” she said. “I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.”

“If it helps, Bingo Night takes place at the Community Center every time,” said Jade. “That’s about as safe a place as I can think of if they’re worried about your safety.”

Dave hesitated and looked down at his lunch tray. His face was impassive, particularly with the added assistance of his usual omnipresent sunglasses. Rose could tell his thoughts were troubled though he was trying to hide that fact. “Don’t get me wrong; I’d love to go. I can’t think of anything more ironic right now than a couple of teenagers attending a Bingo Night unironically just for fun, but…We also kind of had to bribe Bro—our dad or whatever—with a promise of getting A’s on our science test so we could go to the library last night. I’m not sure what else he or Mom would want to let us go tonight.”

“Aw, man, that sucks,” John said with a frown, nudging a homemade mini-pizza with a fork. Rose had to admit that she was starting to be a little jealous of her friend’s lunch choices. “It would have been really cool to hang out together again, but if your parents won’t let you then there’s not much you can do.”

That was…a fair point. Rose was sure she could manage something, but she was also hesitant. Favors from parents were a limited commodity. If they used up all of their bargaining power in one go there would doubtlessly be other opportunities that would come up later that she and Dave wouldn’t get the chance to take advantage of. It was far better to try to ration out these ‘asks’ or ‘favors.’

On the other hand, there was the famous saying ‘You Only Live Once.’ What was the point of living their youth if they couldn’t enjoy it with friends?

“I’ll ask our parents,” Rose said with determination. “The worst that could happen is that they say no. I’ll text you either way to let you know their decision. What time does Bingo start?”

“Well, I usually arrive at five so I can chat with people and help set things up,” Jade explained. John narrowed his eyes at her.

“You’re going to try to rope me into helping with that, aren’t you?”

“Who said anything about ‘try’?” She joked. Jade turned back to Rose and Dave. “The actual event starts at about six or six-thirty, depending on when Sharon Delacourt arrives; she’s the only one with the key to the office where the actual Bingo stuff is stored and she sometimes comes late if she has to pick her kids up from swim practice in Moyen. Come anytime, though, before or after, and I’ll show you around!”

Rose gave a tight smile. “We’ll be there.” Dave looked at her for a moment but said nothing.

Jade and John were the first interesting friends that Rose had ever had. The other people in her social group at best indulged Rose’s fascination with the arcane and occult and at worst ignored her and tried to turn the focus over to either themselves or whatever activity they thought they should be doing. Jade and John, though… They seemed like kindred spirits, of a sort. Rose had the feeling that they also did not take much seriously, but were at least open about what they did and did not like. Even better, they still at least seemed like they were willing to go along with Rose and Dave’s whims.

Rose’s new friends were starting to take up a special role in her life, and she wasn’t willing to let any opportunity to hang out with them disappear like so much smoke in the wind.

She just had to be crafty in how she approached the subject with her parents.

* * *

Like the library trip the day before, it was surprisingly easy enough to obtain permission to go to Bingo night. Rose knew that Bro had already given them not only permission but also a ride into Moyen to visit the library; if she tried asking him a second day in a row for something, he was likely to say no out of spite or pettiness. Therefore, she set about approaching Mom for permission and a ride.

Truthfully, Mom was much more likely to allow them to do anything. The prospect of approaching her like someone seeking a boon (which, Rose supposed, was accurate) rankled something deep inside of Rose. Since she had already given her word, however, she decided to bite the metaphorical bullet. After changing into a newer outfit that was more appropriate for social gatherings rather than school she sent Dave off to his room to fetch whatever it was he thought he might want to take with him while she confronted her mother in the kitchen.

Freshly home from work, Mom sat at the island in the kitchen nursing a freshly made martini. Rose had to stifle the desire to turn her nose up at her mother’s day drinking and remember that Mom had a demanding job that required her to work long hours at seemingly random times of the day. It still didn’t stop her from internally scoffing at Mom’s alcoholism that meant she _needed_ the drink to function. At times, Rose had to stop herself from looking up the statistics for children whose caretakers were alcoholics. She was sure the answers would depress her.

“Mom,” Rose said as amiably as she could. Mom turned to her with a smile.

“Rose!” she greeted cheerfully. She must have just started since her voice wasn’t slurred yet. “How was school? You had that test in science, right?”

“That’s tomorrow,” Rose answered. “At any rate, I have something to ask you.”

“Shoot.”

Rose took a moment to consider her best approach. “Friends of Dave and I have invited us to Bingo night tonight. They assure us that there is also a potluck, meaning we would not need dinner tonight. May we go?”

Mom stared at her for a long moment, making Rose wonder if she had heard her, before laughing loudly. “Oh my god, you at Bingo? That’s priceless!”

Rose bristled. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Rose, honey,” Mom said, smothering her giggles behind her hand. “Have you seriously never noticed? Every time you enter some contest, or game of chance, or whatever you always win. Always. It’s kind of hilarious; now I’m just thinking about those little old ladies getting swindled out of everything they own by a thirteen year old girl.” She stopped to laugh at her mental image. Rose was not amused, though at the very least it didn’t seem like she was being rejected immediately out of hand.

Rose did not like to claim a favorite parent; both Bro and Mom had their faults, and if she looked hard enough, their virtues. Right now, Bro would have been the preferable parent in this situation. He’d give an answer, that would be that, and then she would know where she stood. There would have been none of this waiting around for an answer like there was with Mom.

(Dave tended to disagree; he claimed that Bro was never straightforward, which added to his cool guy persona, of course. He also claimed that Mom was easier to understand since he knew automatically what she meant. Rose didn’t see it, but then again she and her brother were two different people. They doubtlessly had different ways of viewing the world, even if Dave was objectively wrong.)

She took a breath and released. “If I promise that I won’t ‘swindle them out of everything they own,’ may we go?”

Mom’s laughter finally faded, though her eyes still held amusement within them. “Ah, what time is it? And where’s it being held?”

“The event starts around six at the community center, though I would prefer if we arrived around five,” Rose said decisively. She wasn’t sure which way her mother would be swayed. If anything, Rose was sure that Mom was merely playing at taking an interest in her kids but would ultimately say no. 

“Fuck, that’s not a lot of time,” Mom mused, glancing at the wall clock. “Do you think you need to bring something over? Since you said it’s also a potluck?”

Rose considered her words carefully. If she said the wrong thing, Mom would probably say that the whole thing was too much effort or trouble and then say no. Or that there wasn’t enough time to make anything, it would be rude to bring over something store bought, and that ultimately it was for the best if they just didn’t go. Rose didn’t want to give her that chance. “My friend didn’t say anything about us needing to bring anything,” she said evenly. “Just that we should show up.”

Mom glanced around the kitchen, eyeing the refrigerator and pantry. “If you say so,” she said, though she sounded unsure.

“I do,” said Rose. Mom stared at her martini mournfully, sighed, and stood up to dump the liquid down the kitchen sink.

“Well, tell your brother to get ready, I guess. Come find me when you’re ready to leave.”

Rose stared for a moment and left the kitchen quickly before Mom could change her mind. Perhaps the most surprising part of this whole event was her decision to stop drinking so she’d be sober enough to drive them. If anything, Rose had half-expected either Roxy or Dirk to drive them over, or even Bro in a pinch. Mom, however, was apparently deciding to show an interest in her kids’ personal lives. Rose could only assume this was for some well thought out plan to show more derision of her kids’—of _Rose’s_ —interests.

She walked into the living room, pondering her mother’s no doubt nefarious plans. Dave was waiting for her on the couch, examining his camera bag and lenses. When he noticed her he started putting his equipment back in the bag.

“Did I hear you correctly?” he asked. “We’re meeting them at five? I’m pretty sure I heard Jade say it would be cool to meet, like, an hour later.”

Rose sat down on the loveseat. “She did. I, however, thought that it would be unbearably rude of us to come over and not help set everything up. We are, after all, guests.”

Dave rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. “Yeah. Sure. And I suppose this has nothing to do with wanting to do your whole ‘defy and exceed expectations’ thing. Someone tells us to show up at six, by golly we’ve got to be there at five. Yes, I know you said to come at this time, but I thought coming an hour early would show you how serious I am about everything. And it totally has nothing to do with the fact that Rose wants to surprise and show up everyone, no sirree.”

Rose raised an eyebrow. “Are you seriously complaining about getting to see our friends for longer than we could have? Or perhaps you don’t like the idea of taking more photographs of people while their busy.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“What are you kiddos up to?” Roxy came into the room and flopped down onto the couch next to Dave, who narrowly avoided getting his hair messed up. “You both seemed hella eager to get home—again—and I’m not being nosy, but are you leaving the house again? This is, what, the fourth day in a row? And here I thought I had an active social life, but it seems you’ve got me fucking beat.” She looked between Rose and Dave with raised eyebrows. “Sometimes a sister’s got to know what her little sibs are up to. Are you hiding a body? Do you need help hiding a body? Because I got you fam, I’m all up in the science-majikks shit. Let me know what you need.”

“Or, in Roxy speak, you two seem busy. Do you need a ride?” Dirk, ever the more practical sibling, leaned against the doorjamb as he sipped a soda. Rose would have accused him of posing if she didn’t know her oldest brother so well. He probably only realized after her stare that his position in the doorway made him seem like someone purposely trying to be cool. Dirk shrugged and said nothing more.

Like all of the males in their family, he was prepared to die on his rock of irony.

“Nah, no bodies need hiding,” Dave answered. “Well, except us that is, away from all the people mad at us for being so awesome and good looking. You know how it is, one day you’re just chilling through school, as you do, when bam! Next thing you know, there’s a hitman waiting across the street ready to take us out, probably wearing a clown suit, acting like we don’t see him, but we do. Everyone sees him, don’t know who he’s trying to fool ‘cause it’s sure as shit not us. At least the haters didn’t skimp, though. No, our personal assassin’s armed with only the finest of killing tools including but not limited to an exploding rubber duck and a handful of coins. As long as we don’t leave each other’s eyesight, though, we should be fine.”

“Or, in Dave speak, we’re fine, we’re just going to be meeting up with friends to go to Bingo night and a potluck dinner at five,” Rose replied in amusement.

Roxy sat up and gave her a baffled look. Dirk also sent a questioning look Rose’s way, though his expression was more guarded.

“The fuck? You two are playing Bingo?” Roxy paused for a moment in contemplation. “Not going to lie, that sounds like a fucking disaster and I’m sad I’m missing it. Rose, you’re going to cheat those little old ladies out of house and home.”

Rose felt herself start to get annoyed once more. “As I have already told Mom, I don’t know where everyone got that impression of me but I assure you I won’t be ‘cheating’ anyone, out of house and home or otherwise.”

Dirk snorted and took a sip of his soda to hide his reaction. “Rose. You have a…tendency of winning games of chance that’s more than normal for most people.”

Dave looked between his older siblings, clearly confused. “What do you mean? I don’t get it. I mean, I’ve been with Rose since the womb and I’ve never noticed any supposed supernatural luck or anything.”

Rose graced her twin with a grateful smile, glad to have someone at least on her side. She, too, honestly did not know where this reputation of hers had come from. She had her moments, sure, but her family were surely exaggerating.

Roxy chuckled and pulled Dave into a side hug. “Dave, you’re not the most observant when it comes to Rose sometimes,” she said. “She almost always ends up letting you take the win. Did you never notice, or wonder why she always signs you up for contests and shit?”

Dave stared between Roxy and Rose for a moment before turning to Dirk for a final say. Dirk nodded in confirmation, to Rose’s consternation. Dave slumped in his seat, not looking at anything in particular. “I guess…I always wondered why I sometimes won things I didn’t remember entering…I guess I just thought I’d forgotten, or something.”

“I, personally, considered it as supporting my brother,” Rose spoke up. “I was never particularly interested in the prizes myself, but you seemed interested. I figured if you wouldn’t enter your name yourself, I would do so for you.” She refused to feel like the bad guy here. Exactly what was wrong with helping her brother get what he wanted, particularly since he never asked for anything himself? “To be honest, I really haven’t noticed if I’ve been especially lucky or not.”

When Dave didn’t respond Rose regarded him carefully. “It was not my intention to manipulate you.”

Dave released a huge breath at once, sitting up to fiddle with his camera bag strap. “Yeah, I know. And it was pretty cool to win that radio once, I guess.” Rose noticed that he didn’t say anything about believing her to be incapable of manipulating him. She tried not to take it personally; she couldn’t say herself that it wasn’t true, after all.

Roxy leaned across the couch to rub Rose’s arm.

“So, you’ll never believe what happened in science class today…”

* * *

About a half hour later Mom walked into the living room with Jaspers cuddled in her arms while Vodka Mutini trotted along behind her, trying to bat at the dangling end of her long scarf. Rose never quite understood why her and Roxy’s cats both seemed to like their mother so much; she had come to the conclusion long ago that they were capricious creatures that were no doubt trying to wear down Mom’s façade of caring. Mom looked around the room at her kids, not minding or possibly just not noticing Mutini’s attempts at trying to jump up and catch her scarf.

Dirk had since migrated to the armchair across from Rose’s loveseat and had already started in on his homework. Dave had tried to ask him about it until Dirk’s explanation started to include diagrams to help illustrate whatever point he was trying to make. From what Rose could understand, her oldest brother was in an advanced math class and was trying to convince their school’s welding teacher to allow him to start in on a personal project for his extracurricular.

If Rose knew her brother, it was probably to build another robot using actual welding equipment instead of whatever scraps he could find around the house.

Rose herself was busy looking up back issues of _Cassandra's Testament_ that she had since subscribed to. She wanted to learn more about the mysterious disappearance of the homestead back during the 1930s. From what she could tell, there was sordid gossip about the family the mysteriously disappeared and some members of Skaia back before the La Lumiére disappeared. According to Penelope Craven, the magazine's editor, the daughter of the family was engaged to a man in town, whom had been seen fighting with the patriarch of the family--the fiance's father--right before he disappeared.

She wasn't sure how much she believed Craven's story. Most of the article seemed to be based on old gossip, though Rose had to admit that with a story like this there was probably not much else to go on. It looked like the _Testament_ had printed a previous article that included a statement from the chief of police shortly after the disappearance. She would have to look into that more thoroughly.

Perhaps of greater interest, though of varying authenticity depending on how much Rose believed, was the claim that the day before the disappearance was noticed there was a strange electrical storm in seen in the area. There was speculation that the electrical storm may have caused the fire that was thought to have destroyed the homestead. Craven noted that aside from the electrical storm, there had been several other strange portends documented the week leading up to the disappearance. From a series of cattle deaths, to fish dying in the rivers, to reports of levitating objects and moving statues, Rose had to admit that if everything was true then there was definitely cause for believing that the La Lumiére family had met some kind of supernatural end. There was much to keep in mind for later.

Roxy leaned her back against Dave’s side and texted her friends. When she saw Mutini she called over to him to get his attention. Mutini gave one last lingering look at the end of Mom’s scarf, decided that he liked Roxy’s better, and ran over to her to leap up and settle down on her stomach. He curled into a ball on her chest and kneaded at the purple striped scarf pooled around her. Roxy cooed to her cat, enamored. Rose refused to feel jealous. Jaspers, with the exception of whatever was happening with Mom at the moment, did not give out his love for free. His affections had to be earned.

She didn’t deny feeling gratified, however, when Jaspers twisted himself out of Mom’s arms to rub against Rose’s legs, purring like a small engine.

Dave, having finished up whatever homework he might have had at school already, switched his attention between his phone, his camera’s settings, and back again. Rose thought that he might have brought out his newer camera that he’d gotten last Christmas and hadn't had the chance to use much, and was checking the internet for its different functions. The instruction manual that had no doubt actually come with the camera was also no doubt currently lost in her twin’s messy room.

“It’s about a quarter to five,” Mom announced to the room. “You still want me to drive you over to Bingo?”

“Hell yeah,” Dave said. He stood up and stretched, ignoring the way Roxy fell back into the space he used to occupy. “I’m completely ready to try winning, I don’t know, a toaster or something. Do we have a toaster? I’ll try to win us a toaster.”

“Unless I supposedly end up winning everything first,” Rose dryly replied. She gave Jaspers one last pat on the head before saying goodbye to Roxy and Dirk for the afternoon. She and Dave followed Mom out to her car and settled in for the drive.

About five minutes after leaving Mom glanced back to the backseat at her kids. “So. Which friends are you meeting up with? Or are these new ones?”

Rose supposed it was only a matter of time before her parents asked. It was hardly like either she or Dave ever talked much about their current peer groups. They certainly never met up with them anywhere other than at their house. Mom’s question was warranted, though unwelcome.

“New ones,” Dave answered. “They’re the ones we went hoax-hunting with earlier. We also studied with them yesterday at the library; today, it’s Bingo.”

Mom hummed in reply. “Pretty eclectic hobbies you kids have. What’s next, bungee-jumping? Building your own reactor? Volunteering for community service?”

“Perhaps we’ll try our hand at becoming paranormal investigators,” said Rose evenly, thoughts of the articles she'd just read still in the back of her mind. She watched Mom carefully for a response. As a Woman of Science™, Mom typically tended to look down on anything that couldn’t be explained scientifically. Rose’s own interest in the zoologically dubious in part stemmed from trying to prove that the world wasn’t so cut and dry. The fact that Mom claimed both a love of Science™ as well as a love for wizards and anything magical merely showed how fractured her facade was. If anything, Mom’s apparent ‘fascination’ with wizards was probably a remnant from when Rose or Roxy were little girls and had started their wizard ‘phase.’ Parents usually lie to their children when they are very young about harmless things such as similar likes or dislikes. Mom apparently didn’t realize that she didn’t have to keep pretending to like the same things as her kids anymore.

“Oh, that would be great,” Mom agreed. Rose frowned. It looked like this round went to Mom. “What kinds of stuff would you be investigating? Ghosts? Monsters? Aliens?”

“Perhaps all of the above,” said Rose. “We haven’t quite decided yet.”

Dave gave her a look she ignored. “Right. Well, we’re kind of taking everything one day at a time. You know, like an adventure or something. I don’t know, I just want to hang out with my friends. I don’t really care what we do.”

“That’s a good attitude to have,” Mom said. She turned on the turn signal and pulled into the parking lot of the Community Center. There were already a few cars parked around the building as well as a few more parked along the street. Mom pulled up in front of the entrance to let Rose and Dave out. “Call me when you’re ready to be picked up. Oh, and Rose.” Mom winked at them. “Win something nice, yeah?”

She pulled out of the parking lot with a wave.

Rose furrowed her brow. “First she tells me not to win anything, then she tells me to ‘win something nice.’ Is she aware that she’s sending mixed signals? Is she doing this on purpose?”

Dave shrugged, gripping the shoulder strap to his camera bag firmly. “Maybe she was just teasing you or something. Come on, let’s go find Jade. I don’t want to be left standing around outside the whole fucking time, that would just be lame. Like a couple of homeless teens, except we actually have a home, so people will start thinking that we’re just really ungrateful and decided to be homeless as a form of rebellion. Like, did you not just see our Mom just fucking casually wave goodbye to us as she dropped us off like we were a couple of shitty urchins ripped straight out of a fucking Dickens novel? Clearly, we were abandoned. The fact that we were dropped off here, on Bingo Night of all nights, just cements in how happy our parents were to be rid of us.”

She smiled faintly, following her brother into the building. She decided to take his metaphor/example a different way. “That would be tragic for your poor cool kid persona. No one would ever take you seriously ever again if someone caught you standing outside of the Community Center. They would run the grievous risk of mistaking you for a member of the community.”

“Har har,” said Dave. They stepped into the lobby and looked around at the posters and fliers advertising upcoming events and meetings. There were a few people, all adults, lingering around the room. They were all caught up in their own conversations and only one or two seemed to have earned the moniker of ‘elderly.’ The rest were comfortably middle aged, if graying slightly. One woman who looked to be in her fifties laughed at something someone else said. She had a Crockpot in her hands that she was carrying to the next room over.

Rose felt a brief flash of unease over not bringing something to contribute to the potluck before her vision was obscured by a large mass of dark hair followed by strong arms that pulled her and Dave into a crushing hug.

“You made it!” Jade squealed. “You texted that you would, but I thought you’d come later.” She released them so she could stand back and look at them with a large smile on her face.

“Yeah, well, this way we can hang out more,” Dave answered. “Plus you said something about showing us around the place, right?”

Jade’s eyes sparkled. “Right! John’ll be here a little later, but for now you can help me set up some of the tables and I can introduce you to people.”

“That sounds lovely,” Rose said. She paused for a moment. “Is it alright that we didn’t bring anything with us? You did say it was a potluck, but you didn’t say anything about bringing anything…”

“Hey, excuse you, I brought my fucking camera,” Dave protested.

Jade giggled. “Yeah, that’s fine. Plus, John’s Dad and Nanna found out he was coming here, so they apparently made something for him to bring with. We can just say it’s from all of us if anyone has any problems with it, though I doubt it. The people here are pretty cool.”

Dave watched a large man in a sweater vest, jeans, socks and sandals walk by with a container of what looked like deviled eggs.

“I think we have different definitions of cool, but that’s aight. Can’t wait to meet more cool people.”

They followed after Jade deeper into the Community Center towards a large room that looked like it could double as a basketball court. There were already a few tables and chairs set up along with two large banquet tables set over to the side that had a few platters of different food stuffs sat on top.

Rose nudged her brother with her elbow and raised an eyebrow at him. “How does your Cool Kid reputation fair after finding out Jade’s level of standards?” she whispered at him.

Dave scowled. “Pretty damn fine, actually. Better than fine. Abso-fucking-lutely secure, even. She just needs exposure to a better source of what’s actually cool is all.”

“Like you?”

“Of course, how could you even ask? I’m insulted. I’m hurt. I’m dejected, rejected, ejected from the comfort zone of twin acceptance, only to find myself in reflectance of what’s truly important, embracing that adolescence—”

“If I apologize, will you stop rapping at me?” It was Dave’s turn to raise an eyebrow at her, which Rose supposed was fair. There were some days that her brothers and father only communicated with each other and the rest of their family through rapping. Honestly, she should be used to this at this point.

“I don’t know what you two are talking about, but it seems like fun,” Jade piped in from just up ahead. She was looking at them with a curious expression but didn’t seem too eager to stop their banter. “And that was you rapping, Dave? That’s so cool!” Rose ignored the triumphant look her brother gave her. “How do you come up with those rhymes on such short notice?”

“Practice,” Dave shrugged. He worked hard to hide the pleased expression slowly growing on his face, but Rose knew her brother. He was eating up their friend’s praise. 

“Rapping’s pretty much like a second language for Striders, so it didn’t take too long to pick up the basics.”

“Please, Jade, don’t give my brother any more of an inflated ego than he already has,” Rose said dryly. “It’s already hard enough living with him as he is.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Dave said immediately. “She’s just jealous of my sick-nasty Cool Kid skills. You know how it is.”

Jade laughed loudly. “You two are too funny!” She wiped away a stray tear from her eye from laughing so hard. Rose was honestly impressed that they didn’t have anyone coming over to them to tell them to keep quiet, though there were a few people giving them strange looks. “Oh, we should probably actually start helping now, huh?”

Dave’s hands hesitated on his camera bag. “Is there somewhere safe I can put this? I don’t want to accidentally damage it while we’re setting up tables or anything.”

“Sure,” Jade said. “Let’s put it over with my jacket and stuff over here.” She gestured to a section of wall where a few people had already set down their purses, jackets, and other personal objects. “I guarantee it’ll be safe until we come back, though we can also hide it in my jacket if you want.”

“That’d be great, thanks,” Dave said, relieved. Dave’s camera had been a present from Dirk one Christmas. He cherished it more than almost any other possession he had.

After putting their things aside the trio set about unfolding tables and chairs and arranging them in rows. Jade pointed out and introduced them to a few different people in between placing down plastic tablecloths.

“It’s great to see you again, Mr. Lopez! How are your wife and kids?—That’s Mr. Lopez—Jay Lopez—I haven’t seen him around for a few weeks, he’s had to work double shifts to help pay for his son’s braces.”

“Over there is Mrs. Duncan, you _absolutely_ have to try her homemade peanut butter cups—don’t tell John or his family, but I’m pretty sure hers are better. She’s also the head of the beautification committee, so be sure to compliment her on the floral wreaths hanging around town.”

“That was Candy and Justin Kirkpatrick; they’ve been coming here together for _years_. If you have any questions about anything, they’re the ones to ask.”

It was close to six when John finally arrived. Rose was personally feeling a little overwhelmed from being introduced to so many people in such a short amount of time. It felt like Jade knew everyone there, and more than that she was well liked. As soon as they were introduced as her new friends, everyone was immediately much warmer towards Rose and Dave. A few even complimented Dave on his photography when they saw him take pictures of everyone and everything around them.

They were sitting at one of the tables they’d put up in the back. Dave was entertaining Jade with a story about his webcomic while Rose took a moment to decompress from so many people coming over to talk to them. The adults around them were all nice, certainly, but there was something about the way the older ones gave a double take at Rose’s last name.

One woman had even given Rose a hard look as if she were searching for something…or expecting something.

Dave didn’t seem to notice anything and neither did Jade. Rose frowned. She couldn’t think of any reason why some of the people had apparently taken issue with her last name. They didn’t react in any special way towards Dave when he introduced himself, and they were twins. Then again, their last names were different; could that have had something to do with it?

Rose looked over at her brother but said nothing. He seemed to finally be coming out of his shell. She didn’t want to ruin that over an uncomfortable feeling.

Perhaps most tellingly, though, Rose didn’t want to start an argument with him either. She hated it when they fought, whether it was over something as petty as whose turn was it to take out the trash or as gut wrenching as the time when they were seven and had refused to speak to one another for a whole month. Rose couldn’t even remember any more what the fight was about; she just remembered feeling numb, guilty, and uncomfortable the whole time while also refusing to give in.

She doubted that any potential fight they’d have over this would get that far, but the principle still remained. Dave didn’t notice anything wrong even when Rose had asked after the first time she’d gotten weird looks. Dave could be stubborn when he wanted to be, and if he’d decided that Rose was just imagining things then there probably wasn’t anything she could do to change his mind without also bringing unnecessary attention to them and ruining their nice outing as friends.

“You seem deep in thought.”

Rose refused to flinch or give any indication that she was startled by John’s sudden appearance at her side. Bro, and even Dirk to an extent, loved to make similar exits and entrances around their house. She was immune, she told herself. John’s mouth twitched into a smile as he took a seat beside her at their table. Perhaps he wasn’t as fooled as she had hoped.

“Sorry,” he said unapologetically. “But seriously, are you okay? You were kind of spacing out a little.” John looked across the table at where Dave and Jade were still talking happily. “Are they ignoring you or something?”

Rose offered him a smile. “More like I’m ignoring them. Dave started telling Jade about his webcomic and they’ve been like that for the past fifteen minutes, in between Jade introducing us to everyone here that is.”

John nodded sagely. “Yeah, it’s always kind of overwhelming finding out how many people Jade knows. Especially when it’s all at once.” He looked over the room and gave her a conspiratorial wink. “I don’t think they like me that much.”

The immediate relief Rose felt upon realizing that it wasn’t just her was frankly ridiculous. “Oh? I take it they don’t care much for your sense of humor?”

John snorted a laugh. “I think they’re just intimidated, since they don’t have a sense of humor themselves. How is a fake mustache _not_ hilarious?”

“I can’t say that I know how.”

“Exactly. A comedy routine without at least some use of the fake mustache isn’t much of a comedy routine, you know?”

Rose mused. “I suppose it is true that fake mustaches seem to be at the core of every basic comedic routine. Would you say that we have Groucho Marx to thank for this? Because if so, I would be happy to help you make an alter for the legendary comedian.”

To her surprise, John rolled his eyes at the thought of Groucho Marx as a ‘legendary comedian.’

“He’s okay, I guess,” John said unconvincingly. “But if you _really_ want a true comedy genius and pioneer of the humor arts then you only have to look at Colonel Sassacre.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You _have_ heard of Colonel Sassacre, right? I’m not sure if our friendship can survive otherwise.” John’s tone was joking but his eyes held a seldom seen seriousness in them.

Unnervingly, Rose felt like she was at a precipice where one wrong move would send her down a cliff with no hope for return. Like with any challenge, however, she embraced it with open arms and a smile that could possibly lead some to think she was saying ‘come at me, bro!’

“I have heard rumor of this ‘Colonel Sassacre’ figure, yes,” she replied with a hint of a teasing smile. John returned her smile with an almost blinding, joyful one of his own. His eyes glimmered with humor. “I saw an introspective of him once on TV. I watched it with my family, in fact, though that had to have been at least a year ago.” No one wanted to admit that they wanted to change the channel, which led to an intense game of TV chicken that lasted through the whole introspective. Finally Dirk had announced that he was tired and ready to go to sleep early for once. Rose took his surrender as victory for herself, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that he had won as well. If anything, he proved that he was the more mature member of their family.

Rose didn’t think that John would appreciate the whole story so she kept it to herself.

John smiled happily. “I’m going to be a better comedian than him, some day,” he confessed with a laugh. “In the meantime, though, I’m honing my craft. Compared to the rest of my family, though, my Prankster’s Gambit could use some work.” Rose offered him a small smile. She could understand wanting to surpass her family, though probably to a different degree than John had planned. A calm, companionable silence fell between them.

He gazed around the room for a moment. “So how come you looked upset when I came in?”

She frowned and looked away. Rose had hoped that that particular subject of conversation had been avoided nicely, but apparently not. Objectively, she knew that this was actually the mark of a good friend; he had noticed something was upsetting her and wasn’t willing to let the subject go until she felt better. When it came to Dave, and Rose herself in particular, having someone see through their bullshit to call them on it for their own good was rare. In this particular moment, however, Rose would rather that John minded his own business.

Then again…perhaps a fresh, unbiased opinion might be illuminating.

“It’s probably nothing,” Rose started. She snuck a glance at John, who was paying her complete attention. And, well. Nobody in her family could really stand up against that. “When some of the older people here came over so Jade could introduce us to them, I noticed that they had a…hm. Reaction, you could say, to my last name.”

She turned to face John fully, noting his slight frown. At least she was being taken seriously. “As I said, it’s probably nothing. Unless, you can think of a reason why someone would take issue with the name Lalonde?”

John sat for a moment in thought before shrugging in confusion. “Nope. Can’t say that I do.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Maybe they know your mom or something? Do you have someone famous in your family?”

Two someones actually, though only one with the last name Lalonde. Rose frowned even more. Sure her grandmother has written several best-selling novels but they were hardly in a genre that Rose would expect pensioners to read, or even recognize by name. And Mom didn’t leave the house much other than for work, so unless the pensioner population of Skaia was somehow linked in to the science community it couldn’t have been from her. She told him as much.

John shrugged again and stood up from his seat. “Well, I’m out of ideas. Let’s go ask them.”

Rose stared at him. “…Ask them?” She stared at John in bewilderment. He returned the look to her.

“Well, yeah. You wanted to know, right? What better way than to just ask them right now?” His logic, however much Rose disagreed with it, was flawless. Still, Rose wasn’t used to just… _asking_ someone straightforwardly. Perhaps hint around the subject to check how the person will react, sure. Make vague allusions to keep them on their toes, definitely. But just asking them, with no hidden thoughts or agendas? Well, that was new.

New wasn’t always bad, however.

“Fine. Let’s ask them,” Rose said, standing up as well. Dave glanced up from his conversation when she did but didn’t say anything when she waved away his concern. She was sure he’d end up finding out one way or the other. He shrugged and took a quick candid picture of Jade, which made her laugh once more. Rose was happy that they were getting along so well.

John giggled at Rose’s side when she led them through the room that was slowly being populated by more and more people. At her raised eyebrow he grinned. “I told you that some of the older people here don’t like me much, right? I’m just thinking about how pissed off they’ll be with me after this.” He smiled at Rose. “But, hey, that’s on them, right?”

Rose returned his smile. “You know, I think I agree.”

She walked over to a table that had three people who looked to be in their sixties sat around it. There were two women and one man, all of whom had reacted in some way upon hearing Rose’s last name. They had started murmuring to one another when they saw her approach with John behind her. She took this as a sign that there was something for them to murmur about in the first place. It was always good to know that it wasn’t just her feeling paranoid.

“Excuse me,” Rose said politely. Mom, and to a lesser degree her grandmother, had made sure to instill lessons in How to be Polite™ from an early age. Rose tended to think that those lessons were in general a waste of time. Dealing with the elderly population, on the other hand, made those lessons worthwhile. “We met earlier, when Jade introduced us.” Good luck on Rose trying to remember their names, though. She had to have been introduced to at least twenty people in the span of a half hour. They all tended to blend in with one another.

“Of course, dear,” the woman with the beehive hairdo said. The other two made similar sounds of agreement. “Is there something we can help you with?”

“I suppose I was looking for confirmation,” Rose admitted. “When I introduced myself, I noticed that you seemed to recognize my last name.” The three elders sat with stoic expressions, other than the man’s mouth tightening the slightest degree.

_Confirmation_ , Rose thought.

“I see you know what I’m talking about,” she said. “May I ask how you know my family, then?”

“Oh, it’s all rather silly,” the second woman spoke up, clasping her hands together nervously. She had startling doe eyes for someone of her age. “It’s not so much that we _know_ your family, dear…”

“More like know _of_ them,” the man said gruffly.

“Oh?” Rose asked, puzzled.

The man shrugged. “You Lalondes used to live around here, oh, decades ago, before deciding to leave.”

“Your family was always nice, dear,” Doe-Eyes said hurriedly, lest Rose think some great shame had befallen her family line. “It’s just…surprising! I suppose you could say, to find out that you’ve returned to our little town.”

“Were they notorious, or something?” John asked from the side. Beehive and the man snorted, exchanging looks. Doe-Eyes looked taken aback.

“Heavens, nothing of the sort!” she protested. Doe-Eyes sent reproaching looks to her companions, who ignored her. “Just, the head of the family back then had made it _very_ well known that they didn’t plan on coming back. I never knew why…”

“The head of the family…” Rose said, mostly to herself. “Would her name be Rosaline, by any chance?” She shifted in place, prepared to get comfortable for what looked to be interesting family gossip.

“That was her daughter’s name, I believe,” Doe-Eyes recalled thoughtfully. “No, the head was a woman by the name of Rowena. Do you know of her?”

Rose thought about it, considering. “Rosaline is my grandmother, so I assume Rowena would be my great-grandmother. I’ve never met her, however.”

“Probably for the best,” the man said. “She was a real piece of work, that woman. Don’t suppose you know why your family came back to the area, then?” He either couldn't or didn't bother to hide the curiosity on his face. Obviously, he was looking for some form of gossip in return.

She offered him her best fake smile and tried to look regretful. She wasn’t sure if she pulled it off that well, considering the smirk John hurriedly hid underneath a cough. “I’m afraid not,” she said. “I’ve lived here my whole life. I wasn’t even aware that my family used to live in the area before my parents moved here.”

After a few more pleasantries, Rose excused herself and John away to head back to their table. John whistled lowly as they walked back and gave her a side look.

“That’s pretty weird about your family,” he offered. “Maybe there’s some kind of mystery there?”

Rose appreciated both his attempt at trying to offer a suggestion to a frankly bizarre conversation as well as his acknowledgement of the fact that their friendship originated with solving a mystery. She didn’t think, or want, that their friendship should be based solely on mysteries. That made for a frankly shallow relationship. Plus, there was always the much more obvious answer.

“I doubt it,” she told him. “My family tends to make decisions, particularly big decisions, based on spiting one another. If my great-grandmother was so determined to never live here again, then it would make sense for my grandmother, or even my mother, to use that as the deciding factor for moving back.”

John was silent for a moment. He started laughing as they reached their seats. “Your family’s weird, Rose.”

“Tell me about it,” said Dave. Jade beamed from her seat.

“John! You made it!” she exclaimed happily. “When you texted that your Nanna was making a casserole to bring, I thought for sure you’d try to play sick or something so you wouldn’t have to come.”

John snorted in his seat and crossed his arms. “If I did that, I’d have to eat the whole thing myself. At least this way I can get something else for a change.” He leveled Jade a look. “Plus, I’ve been here for a while already. You were just busy talking to Dave about…what was it again, a web comic?” He looked to Rose for confirmation. He ignored the way Jade stuck her tongue out at him.

“Only the best web comic you’ll ever find, ever,” Dave said, clearly gearing up to talk some more about his pet hobby. “And before you say anything, Rose, both Bro and Dirk think it’s awesome, so there. Point proven. Check fucking mate, ball's in your court, nothing but net.”

“Those were definitely some sports analogies you made,” Rose replied. “Oh, the sports. And which sport were you talking about again? Chess, was it?”

Dave shifted in his seat. “You know. Sports. The sports. Look, I don’t have to defend myself to you; John can prove my point for me.” He pulled out his phone and pulled up a familiar, eye-sore inducing, glaring web page. “Here, John, this is Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff. Can you honestly tell me it’s not the most beautiful fucking thing you’ve ever seen with your own eyes? The correct answer, by the way, is no, you can’t.”

John took a moment to stare at the web page before glancing between Jade and Rose uncertainly. Jade started giggling. Rose decided to take pity on him. “This is another instance of Dave’s unique use of the word ‘irony.’ Like his pictures, he purposely makes his drawings as horrible as he can ‘for the art.’ It’s fine if you tell him you don’t like it, John.”

Dave pulled his hand and phone back with a fake sound of aghast. “How dare you belittle my hobbies and crafts like that. Just because you can’t appreciate fine art doesn’t mean that others can’t.”

“Do you really think that qualifies as fine art?” John asked, sounding genuinely curious. Dave snorted.

“Hell, no. But you wouldn’t believe the number of people who think I’m actually serious about this, it’s amazing. Want to read the comments section? I’m pretty sure there was a comment war going on between some of them earlier about the inherent meaning behind everything if you just look hard enough.”

“I’m also sure that Dirk’s the one who started that comment war,” Rose mused. That sounded just like something her oldest brother would do. Both he and Bro had apparently made it a hobby to lurk around in the comments to stir up Dave’s readers. Dave didn’t actively encourage them to do so, but he’d also made no effort to stop them either.

“That’s amazing,” Dave laughed. He shook his head, no doubt imagining how this event came about. Rose took a moment to observe her brother, noting how relaxed and content he looked. Taking this as a good sign, she turned to Jade to start a conversation on shared interests while John and Dave laughed together about the comment section’s antics.

* * *

The next time Rose looked at the clock on the wall it was close to six-thirty, when Jade said the main Bingo event would happen. The room was about three quarters full of people who were sitting and chatting with one another as they waited for the main event. Jade noticed Rose looking around.

“Don’t worry, it’ll start soon,” she assured Rose. “Though if you’re hungry, we won’t have to wait long. Food’s usually served around when the game starts, though you can always get up and get seconds at any time, or even wait for everyone else to get through first.”

“That’s certainly convenient,” said Rose. She was admittedly beginning to feel hungry so it was nice to know that they’d be able to eat soon. “You mentioned at lunch that you usually start the game at around this time, depending on if we’re waiting for someone. I would assume that they’re still not here?”

Jade shrugged, unconcerned. “I guess Mrs. Delacourt had to pick up her kids today. This happens, sometimes, though, so she should be here any minute.”

“How long have you been coming here?” Rose asked, curious. She didn’t know that much about her new friends, a fact which was becoming more and more obvious the longer she spent more time with them.

Jade’s eyes widened. She sat back, looking at nothing as she tried to count back to how long it had been. “Gosh, I don’t know… A couple of months? Since about the middle of summer, at least.” She shrugged. “My plane landed here just before school let out in May, and I started exploring the town shortly after that. I was actually walking around trying to find everything when I ran into this really nice lady who gave me directions. We started talking, and she told me about community Bingo Night, I came once, and then that was it.”

Jade’s smile turned into a goofy caricature of ‘conspiratorial.’ “Between you and me, part of the reason I started coming in the first place is because everyone always brings really good food. Don’t get me wrong, John’s family’s great and all, but I just feel guilty if I’m always eating over at their place, you know?”

Rose nodded sagely. “I can see how you wouldn’t want to impose all the time.” That and, depending on how his family felt about their relationship, John’s family may not appreciate his girlfriend spending an inordinate amount of time at their house. She decided not to bring this up in case it was a sore subject. Rose made a mental note to learn more about her friends’ personal lives so she would know when to bring up certain subjects or not.

She took up a different subject, instead. “You mentioned that someone told you about Bingo Night,” she said. “Does she still come around? Or did you introduce us already?”

Jade laughed again. “No, she’s not here yet,” she said. “Actually, Dolores is usually here earlier.”

“Unless she gets a call from our industrious leader that her car has a flat,” an older woman’s voice floated over to them. Jade squealed and launched out of her seat to hug a woman who walked over to them. She looked to be in her early sixties with black hair that was only just starting to turn gray. Her green eyes sparkled in amusement as she returned Jade’s hug.

“Sorry I’m late, Jade,” she said with an amused smile. “Sharon called me when she got off work to tell me her tire was flat. Guess who got to drive her kids home from practice?” Now that she mentioned it, Rose did notice a rather harried, middle-aged woman in a business suit power walk to the front of the room while carrying the large Bingo cage. Most of the room had also noticed and were visibly more alert than they had been five minutes prior. It looked like the main event was about to begin.

Jade laughed and pulled away to gesture to their table. “That’s okay; it just means you get to meet my friends later!” She pointed them out one by one. “This is Dave, Dave Strider. He’s, like, the coolest kid in my class.” Rose shot Dave an amused look which he ignored. Instead, he sat up straighter and offered the woman—Dolores—a small nod in greeting. “And this is his sister, Rose Lalonde. She’s probably the smartest girl in school.” This time it was Dave’s turn to give her a look. Rose’s cheeks warmed slightly, touched by Jade’s praise. She didn’t particularly consider herself to be exceptionally gifted in school, though she would admit that she usually had good grades. Still, it was nice to hear someone else offer her praise. “And, well, you know John, of course.”

John waved with a smile. “Hi, ma’am. My Dad wants to know if you still plan on helping with the bake sale next month.”

Dolores’ eyes narrowed as she offered John a warm smile. “You can tell your father that he’ll have to pry my organizational charts out of my cold, dead hands. He’ll just have to live with me hassling him to fill out his quota _on time_.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I’ll tell him.”

Dolores looked up at the front of the room where people were starting to stand up and head towards the buffet tables. “It's a pleasure to meet you both. It's always nice to meet friends of Jade's, especially ones willing to come out to Bingo Night, though it looks like we're starting later than usual. Well, at least it looks like I’m just in time to eat. Have you all gotten your cards and markers yet?”

Jade gasped. “Not yet! I’ll go get them if everyone else wants to grab something to eat. How many cards does everyone want?”

“Five,” Dave said. Rose looked at him and he shrugged in response. They both rose from the table.

“I’m under orders not to be ambitious tonight,” Rose stated dryly. “I’ll take three.” She ignored Dave huffing a laugh under his breath and muttering something about ‘yeah, not ambitious, right.’

John shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll take whatever you give me, I guess,” he said. “I’m not really that interested.”

“Yet, you’re not,” Jade declared with narrowed eyes and a challenging, stubborn grin. “I’ll get you hooked one of these days, John Egbert. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

“The horror,” he laughed, rolling his eyes. They split ways to grab their own objectives. Rose took it upon herself to get a separate plate for Jade since she was getting everyone else’s Bingo supplies. When she saw John adamantly ignoring one pot containing a casserole in particular she made sure to make direct eye contact as she scooped a large helping onto both hers and Jade’s plates. The overly exaggerated eye roll she received in return made her smile.

When they returned to their table it was to see Jade setting a pile of Bingo cards and a tray of little plastic markers in the center. She turned to them with a teasing smile.

“John didn’t say how many he wanted, so I got you ten.” She ignored John’s spluttered laughter. “I’ll take four for myself, so everyone else figure out which ones you want.”

“Sweet,” Dave declared. He sat down with his tray and started poking around at the different food items while examining the cards. “Hey, Rose, which ones do you think I should get?”

Rose sat down across from him and raised an eyebrow. “So you’re okay with my supposed ‘luck’ powers, which I’m still not convinced I have?”

“Look, Rose, one of the prizes is a sweet ass aerator.” Her brother’s expression and tone were comically serious. “Just imagine, I’m sitting around one night when the urge hits. I can’t fight it, I’m only human. Apple juice is calling to me. Now, I can either have it flat, like a fucking douche bag—or, I can aerate it and add bubbles like a boss. You don’t want me to be a douche bag, do you Rose?”

“I’m afraid that train’s already left the station, my dear brother,” Rose replied. She still nevertheless slid over five cards to him. “Try this one in particular. I’m feeling lucky.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Dave hissed under his breath. Rose rolled her eyes. She decided not to point out that even if he did win, he’d have to hide his prize from their mother.

“What’s this about being lucky?” John asked around a mouthful of pasta salad. Rose winced at his manners but answered anyway.

“According to my family, I have a tendency of being lucky when it comes to games of chance like the one we’re about to partake in,” she explained. “I myself have never noticed anything out of the ordinary, but they have managed to convince Dave. If you want, I can ‘choose’ your cards for you as well.”

John swallowed and laughed. “Nah, thanks though. I guess I don’t really get why these games are that fun. I never win, anyway.”

“That may be why you don’t like them,” Jade observed. Rose narrowed her eyes at her friend, taking up his unknown challenge. Decisively, she slid over one of her cards to change out with one of his. John looked at her with furrowed brows but said nothing. Jade giggled at their exchange.

“I think that’s her way of telling you you’ll win something if she has anything to say about it,” Jade informed John.

They stopped talking when the woman in the business suit—Sharon Delacourt, from what Jade had said—walked to the front of the room once more and got everyone’s attention.

“Welcome back, everyone,” she said. “First, I want to apologize for my tardiness. Since it doesn’t look like there are any announcements to make, I’ll go ahead and start our game off with the first roll of the night!”

Like a switch the noise in the room dropped off to nothing as the people gathered turned serious. Rose and her friends had deliberately picked a table in the very back of the room away from the others so they wouldn’t disturb anyone with any unintentional noise or conversation. From what Jade had told them, the people here took their game Very, Very Seriously.

“Mr. Simpson told me about this one time, a few years ago,” she had said when they were setting up the tables, “about this one man who would come over and yell ‘Bingo’ when he didn’t have one. The man would just stick his head into the hall and yell ‘Bingo!’ Everyone was upset, of course, since some people immediately clear off their cards to start a new game.” Jade had stared at them with wide eyes. “They eventually had the man prosecuted. So, um. Just keep in mind not to call Bingo unless you’re sure you have it, okay?”

In the present moment, Rose was enjoying herself more than she thought she would. Dave would regularly look over at her cards to see if she had five in a row yet. She amused herself by giving him smug looks and waggling her eyebrows.

After all, what was a little light psychological manipulation between siblings during a game?

After a number was called about ten minutes into the first game—O-64—Rose heard a soft sound coming from her left. She looked over at John, who was staring down at his card in amazement. He had five in a row. He looked over at Rose, then back at his card, his brow furrowing. Rose smiled at him.

John frowned at her. “It’s not worth it,” he murmured to her. “Look, I don’t even want a…new blender, or whatever. Let someone else have it.”

Rose wasn’t willing to let this go, however. She raised an eyebrow and looked over her shoulder at where the group of pensioners she and John had spoken to earlier were sitting. John followed her gaze and huffed a laugh. He, too, saw that one of them almost had five in a row. True, they had offered an adequate explanation for their actions, but Rose still didn’t like the way they had treated her at first—a thirteen year old girl, who didn’t understand why these adults were giving her strange looks based solely on her last name.

Was it petty? Perhaps. But no one would ever accuse her of not being her father’s daughter. What better way of asserting her dominance and showing that she was not one to be pushed around?

With a grin, Rose grabbed John’s hand and lifted it in the air.

“Bingo!”


	5. A Day in the Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Confrontation. A Field Trip (to an actual field, too). A Planning of Events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that school's started up again, I'll probably actually be able to stick to a schedule for updating. Since it's also my last semester in grad school, who knows how that schedule will keep up near the end of the semester.
> 
> In the meantime, pesterlogs are going to start being a thing now! This chapter is partially just friend/sibling bonding time, part practice for me to get used to them.

“When I’m with anybody else  
It’s so hard to be myself  
Only you can tell…”  
\-- I’m Only Me When I’m With You—Taylor Swift

* * *

Friday morning came bright and early. Dave kept replaying scenes from last night’s Bingo adventure, especially John’s expression when he won the first game of the night. The looks of pure fucking envy and disgust some of the people there had had when John had walked away with a fancy new set of pots and pans were something to be cherished. Dave had made sure to take as many surreptitious pictures as he could get away with.

Surprisingly Rose hadn’t said anything to him about the photos. Usually she was always trying to get him to calm down on the pictures, at least in situations that apparently called for ‘proper etiquette.’ Then again, Dave had seen that his sister apparently had taken issue with some of the people there. Knowing her, she probably ended up using John as part of a means of getting some kind of petty revenge. He wasn’t sure how he felt about knowing that his new friend was used like that; it was a pretty shitty feeling all around. Then again, Dave was under no illusions that he was also used in similar ways so the whole situation was probably just not as big of a fucking deal as he was making it out to be.

When it became increasingly clear that Dave wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep for any reasonable amount of time before it was actually time to get up to get ready for school, he sighed and sat down at his desktop computer. He pulled up a few photo shop programs and Microsoft Paint and started idly flipping through the recent pictures he’d taken that he’d saved to his computer. When he got like this, with thoughts swirling around his head that he didn’t quite know what to do with, Dave started updating SBaHJ for lack of anything better to do. If anything, creating shitty comics was therapeutic in a way since it required him to not only empty his mind of anything that didn’t immediately seem like something he could make a comic about but also focused his attention into figuring out how to make said comic as shitty as he could make it.

Dave looked over some of his past comics for inspiration. It wasn’t always bad to have a somewhat continuing storyline, provided he kept it short, brought it up randomly in between other storylines and random comics, and if the mood struck him end it as abruptly as he could. There was nothing more satisfying than watching people in the comments cry and make conspiracy theories on when, or even if, he would continue the story line.

When all else failed, stairs were a good go to. He always warned his readers about the stairs, but they never seemed to listen.

One of the latest strips he’d made was of the heavily photo shopped actual picture he’d taken of the Mysterious Hoax (he had to give it some kind of shitty name in-comic, after all; Mysterious Creature was taking the issue a little more seriously than Dave was really comfortable with). The comic had Sweet Bro, Hella Jeff, and even a ‘surprise’ cameo of Geromy, tripping over themselves at the ‘crim skene’ while ‘luking for cloos.’ Dave had pretty much left it there without continuing the storyline. He glanced through the pictures he’d taken last night and decided that it would make perfect sense for the Mysterious Hoax to have invaded the Bingoe Parlour. Dave made sure to choose a photo without any actual people in it since he doubted that any of the people there would have been okay with ending up in a semi-famous comic. After contemplating his choices for a moment, he chose the photo he’d taken when he, Jade and Rose had just set up all of the tables and were basking in their handiwork.

Dave spent another few minutes haphazardly cropping his sister and Jade out of the picture so they could be replaced by his shitty drawings. For added shits and giggles, he colored in some of the background with loud and obnoxious colors ala photo shop. He spent some time manipulating the image so that the ‘cloos’ the gumshoes (with shoes made out of actual pictures of chewed gum) found led to—gasp! The dreaded casserole dish!

John and Jade had told him last night as they were leaving that they would try to check out his comic when they had the chance. Years of experience of other people telling him the same thing made it unlikely that they would follow through, but the thought that his new friends might read his comic was nice. And honestly, he wouldn’t blame them if they decided not to; hardly anyone outside of his family who knew about his comic actually bothered to check it out. If Dave happened to include John’s family’s casserole dish from last night as a reference to the shenanigans they had gotten up to, then nobody really had to know. Rose certainly wasn’t going to bother reading his comic, just like he wasn’t going to bother reading her ‘tomes of the zoologically dubious.’ It could just be a nice easter egg that only he, Rose if she bothered, John and Jade would get.

Dave sat back in his chair and stretched from sitting hunched in front of the computer for some time. It was still a little early to really be posting up sick content, but that was also part of the charm of SBaHJ. It was spontaneous, and absolutely no one knew where it was going, Dave included. It was like Comic Ouija, if he wanted to put a label on it. No one knew, so obviously the spirits were behind it. Dave contemplated telling John about his theory. John seemed like the type of person to like that kind of thing. He pulled up the screen with his website and after a few quick, minor edits and tweaks, posted up the latest comic.

Still feeling restless, Dave decided to start looking through some of the comments people had made. He was curious how the flame war had turned out. He skimmed through the comments he’d read already, skipped the one his uncle had made completely, and searched for his brother’s comment specifically. Dirk made it a habit to comment on every single one of Dave’s updates, sometimes even multiple times when he found someone whose views he disagreed with. Dave was curious exactly how his brother started the newest flame war.

sbhajfan42069: i’m just saying this isn’t as good as his previus stuff. strider rly phoned it in w/ this one.  
timaeusTestified: So what I’m hearing here is that you’re obviously new here. Please don’t try to pretend like you’ve been around ‘since he started,’ otherwise you would have known that this is exactly the kind of content that has always been around.  
timaeusTestified: I’m going to go out on a limb and say…fake fan? Since you can’t even spell the name of the comic right in your handle.  
sbhajfan42069: its called irony douchewad! get a lyfe already and learn a thing or to.  
timaeusTestified: No, please, keep telling me about how you’re a virgin. I’ll wait.

Wow, okay. Dave was both amused and a little touched. He knew Dirk liked him and looked out for him and everything. It still made his heart fill with warm and fuzzy feelings when Dirk brought out his viciousness in Dave’s defense. Ironically, of course. Dave swallowed back the sudden tightness in his throat and skimmed the comments once more. There was no way he was going to miss out on nearly everyone taking sides and going for each other’s throats. Perhaps he may even make a comment of his own just to keep the argument going. That could be fun. One comment in particular caught his eye, though, from both the color of the text and the newness of when it was made.

ghostyTrickster: hey, so, i said i’d check out your comic, and i think i remember you taking this photo.  
ghostyTrickster: i’m not really sure what’s going on here, but i guess it seems interesting? maybe i’ll figure out what’s going on if i read from the beginning?

From the timestamps on the comments, it looked like John had looked up SBaHJ as soon as he got home. Dave’s face was doing that thing where it was getting warmer for no reason again. Having a friend actually keep a promise, even one as stupid as promising to read his shitty comic _and then actually doing so_ was…different. A good different, sort of.

Honestly, though, this whole situation was starting to get a little too sincere for Dave’s taste. He was prepared to write a reply to John’s messages—probably something along the lines of ‘no, this is as good as it gets’—when he read a little further and saw another comment by John. Dave couldn’t help the sudden, quick burst of laughter that made it out of his mouth. He was just lucky there was no one else awake or in his room at the moment to catch him almost losing his cool.

ghostyTrickster: to borrow a page from jade’s book, :/  
ghostyTrickster: nothing made sense even after reading from the beginning. sorry dude, i just don’t think this comic’s for me. i’m glad you seem to be happy making it, though!  


* * *

There were times when Dave was glad—grateful, even—for his lessons in how to achieve the perfect poker face. Rose unfairly had some kind of twin telepathy/superpower or something to see through his bullshit, but for the most part his stoic façade had no weaknesses. This was especially good for when Dave had to stop himself from grinning like an idiot over his friend actually bothering to give a fuck about his hobbies. It felt really fucking nice to have someone outside of his family compliment him on his hobbies, even if it was to just tell him that he didn’t get it but was happy that it made Dave happy.

He could only imagine the hassle everyone would give him if Dave were to suddenly start smiling over nothing. That didn’t mean that Dave didn’t immediately start trying to chat with John over Pesterchum, though, asking what his favorite part was, or how far he’d managed to push himself through before giving up. John, obviously, didn’t answer until it was almost time to leave for school, and only then to give an annoyed, virtual huff at being asked so many questions so early in the morning. It was all good natured, though—Dave could tell from the way John had said goodbye with a see you at school! :B

Dave parted ways with his siblings in the hallways as usual and thought nothing about his other friends suddenly ambushing him on his way to his locker. Rose was already about halfway down the hallway when they appeared, so she obviously didn’t notice him being surrounded. Not like he really needed her there to help him deal with said friends, of course. That would just be sad and pathetic, neither of which fit Dave’s description. More like, cool and ironic. That was him, just as how he was sure there was probably some kind of ironic reason for his friend’s caging him in like this.

He told himself that there was nothing wrong. So what if his other friends had essentially formed a wall separating him from the rest of the hallway. Dave wasn’t scared of his friends. Even when they were royally pissed off at something, he’d never been scared. After years of training and doing daily exercises with Bro and Dirk, Dave knew for a fact that he could take them if it came down to a fight. Obviously, they outnumbered him but Dave was scrappy.

Images rushed in his mind of his friends suddenly in 50s greasers attire while Dave himself was in a poodle skirt for some reason. Probably for the irony. In his mind, his friends were snapping their fingers in unison and were about to threaten him for his lunch money. Sucks for them, Dave was planning on stealing from Rose’s tray if that happened. Poor imaginary Dave in the poodle skirt clutched at a string of pearls he was wearing (also for the irony) and was prepared to threaten the ruffians for daring to mess with his poor, pure (ha) maiden’s heart like that. Dave felt silly and was extremely grateful that no one around him could actually read minds. Shit was goddamn embarrassing and not at all what other people should be subjected to.

He also felt a sudden rush of shame that his first thought was of his other friends trying to pick a fight with him for some reason. He’d never really felt uncomfortable with them before, so he wasn’t sure why that was his first thought. He looked between his friends, grateful that his sunglasses kept his eyes hidden, and licked his lips.

“Hey, guys,” he said as casually as he could. His tone came out a little flatter than he had intended, making him hide a wince. Damn, he could at least try to keep it together a little better. “What’s up?”

“Why don’t you tell us, Strider?” Diego spoke up. He crossed his arms and gave him a furrowed look. The look wasn’t helping with Dave’s mental comparison of potential lunch money theft. “You’ve been scarce this week. What gives?”

“And why are you spending so much time with Egbert and Harley?” Josh asked. “Yeah, you don’t always eat lunch with us since your sister doesn’t always let you,” Dave’s mouth twitched into a frown at the implication that he could only do things if Rose _allowed_ him to, “but you’ve been eating with them all fucking week. Is something going on, there?”

“You trying to put the moves on Harley?” Roy questioned. Dave had already been annoyed at not being given the chance to answer back yet, and especially at the jab about Rose, but there was something about Roy implying that Dave was trying to steal Jade away from John that really grated on his nerves. “No judgments, or anything, but don’t you think you could do better? What about Claire in the year above us? Or Susan from the track team? I’m pretty sure they’d go out with you if you just asked.”

“Or maybe I’m just friends with them now,” Dave snapped. It took him a moment to realize he’d said that out loud. His friends looked at him with confused—and concerned, _what the actual fuck_ —expressions. He took a breath before saying anything else. “Look, I’m still friends with you guys, okay? Just, Rose and I started hanging out with them this week, and they’re pretty cool to hang out with. That’s all.”

His friends exchanged looks and shuffled on their feet, clearly unsure but also not willing to bring it up anymore. Dave was just glad that they weren’t crowding him against the lockers as much as before. “If you’re sure,” Josh said, not convinced. 

Dave rolled his eyes behind his shades. “Positive. And anyway, it’s not like I’ve really missed anything, right?” His friends seemed oddly reassured at that.

Dave, for one, couldn’t help but think back on all that he might have missed out on that week if he hadn’t overheard a snippet of conversation back on Monday. He wouldn’t say so in front of his friends, but there was no way he was willing to give that up.

* * *

The next day was Saturday, and Dave had a full day planned of not really doing much. He had vague plans of probably developing the film pictures he’d taken earlier that week if only for something that would keep his hands busy. He could always update SBaHJ again, but he also wasn’t really feeling up to trying to force out a comic—it would only come out as the wrong kind of bad.

Frankly, after spending the past week doing something after school almost every day, Dave was starting to feel a little stir crazy. He wanted to be able to go outside and actually _do_ something. What, though, he didn’t know. Hell, if nothing else, he supposed he could always take a walk in the short little forest behind his house. It didn’t really go anywhere, and definitely wasn’t as big as the Murder Woods, but maybe a hike or some other kind of physical activity would help with the restlessness he felt.

Dave entered the living room and brightened when he saw Dirk. He didn’t notice his brother making some minor adjustments to some kind of robotic project at first. Dave shrugged. If Dirk was also bored, he might be up to playing a video game with Dave, or even doing something outside together. Maybe a race. Dirk tended to be more amenable to doing things if there was some kind of clear goal involved.

“Hey, bro,” Dave said, dropping down on the couch next to Dirk. “What’s up? Want to do something later?”

“Can’t,” came Dirk’s short reply. He adjusted what looked to be some kind of mechanical arm with propellers on it (a drone?) and nodded to himself in satisfaction. Dave tried to swallow back his disappointment.

“Oh. Cool. Yeah, we could just do something later, I guess.” There must have been something in Dave’s tone that made Dirk turn to look at him. Dave silently cursed himself for being so transparent. At least Bro wasn’t here to see this sorry excuse for a shitshow. He pulled up his phone and started to check his messages in the hopes of appearing nonchalant. There was absolutely nothing chalant going on here, just a dude checking his goddamn messages. Absolutely nothing that could be seen as pathetic in any way, shape, or fucking form.

Just too super chill and cool dudes chilling on a couch, doing their own thing. Nothing to see here.

“Want to come with me?” Dirk asked. He’d put whatever his project was away in a case and was looking at Dave from the side. The fucker may have even had a slight smile on his face, but from what Dave didn’t know. His bro was full of them mysterious ways. “I’m applying to the engineering and robotics department for college and want to show them an example of my work. It would probably help if I had someone willing to stand around and maybe wave at my drone on queue just to prove I didn’t copy some video off the internet. If you’re up for standing around in a field for a few hours, that is.”

The thing was, if Dirk had worded that any other way Dave would have felt like he had to say ‘no’ just on principle. In general Dave tried to bother others, Dirk and Bro in particular, as little as possible. Dirk also probably knew this which is why he asked the way he did. It also gave both of them plausible deniability for getting to spend time with their brother if anyone (Rose) decided to ask. Dave wasn’t always fluent in the language of subtle meanings within meanings like his brother and Bro were, but there were times like this that he felt pretty good at his chances of proving he was a Strider through and through.

“Sure, what’s more fun than being directed to do random shit by a bro who will totally take advantage of that while you’re there?” Dave asked.

Dirk snorted. “Well, now you’ve put the idea in my head. The trick will be how to still make everything professional enough I’ll still get accepted.” Like there was any way Dirk _wouldn’t_ get into the college of his choice. Still, this didn’t bode exceptionally well for Dave’s chances of getting out of this with his dignity still intact and there was absolutely no possible fucking way he was going to try to say he changed his mind about going now. The gauntlet had been thrown, and it was up to Dave to accept his fate. Dirk continued to muse thoughtfully. “It’d probably be best if I didn’t edit the video as much as I can, since that could potentially hurt my chances. I’ll just have to be creative.”

Oh, that sounded like a promise. And Dave had asked for it, too.

“Be creative about what?” the absolute worst person to appear asked. Carefully petting Jaspers in her arms, Rose regarded her brothers with an amused smile and a raised eyebrow. That eyebrow meant nothing but trouble for Dave.

“Nothing. Guy stuff. Like sports, and…and other guy stuff. Nothing you’d be interested in,” Dave said quickly and convincingly.

Rose, proving that she absolutely had to have some kind of mind reading power, did not appear convinced. Dirk laughing quietly behind him probably didn’t help his case, either.

“I see. Guy stuff,” she said skeptically. There was a certain gleam in her eye that made Dave want to shrivel up and die, or at the very least hide out in his room for the next fifteen years. Surely she’d forget about this moment by then. “Are you perhaps implying that because I am, by definition, not a ‘guy’ that I would not be interested in your quote-unquote ‘guy stuff?’”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Dave mumbled. “Just, you know, we’re not doing anything that crazy or anything, so I don’t think you’d be interested. Since I’m your twin and everything, so I know about your interests, and I don’t think you’d like this. I’m just trying to help out, like the caring brother I am.”

“He’s worried you’ll help me come up with ideas to embarrass him,” Dirk said. Dave could _feel_ Rose’s interest pique. This wasn’t turning out to be his day.

“Dirk!”

“I see,” Rose said as she regarded them with her sphinx-like smile. Jaspers looked over at him and meowed. Well, it looked like there was no help coming from that front. “And exactly how and why are you going to be teasing Dave?”

Dirk closed the lid to the case the drone was in, closing the snaps on the lid with mechanical efficiency. “I’m going to be documenting my drone to add to my college application. Dave decided to help me by standing around in a field and waving to the camera to prove I didn’t steal someone else’s video.”

“And of course, waving isn’t the only potential signal you could have him make,” Rose stated with a gleeful smile. Well, gleeful by Rose’s standards at least. Dave glared at Jaspers when he started purring in her arms. It was clear whose side he was on.

“Hey, here’s an idea, why don’t you get Rose to help you out too?” Dave said suddenly before anyone could have any more ideas. “More the fucking merrier. Who knows, you could probably even make Rose T-pose or something. That would be great. Goddamn fantastic. Let’s focus on that idea.”

Dave loved his twin and his brother dearly, he really, really did. Whenever they decided to team up with one another, usually against him, though, it got to be almost more than he was willing to handle. Separately they were fine. Rose would tease him, usually about some psychological issue she was sure he was repressing or whatever, but she would back off if she saw that he was really uncomfortable. Dirk was the same way. He’d tease as well, like older brothers do sometimes, and sometimes he could be unaware if he made a comment a little too vicious but once he saw how upset Dave pretended he wasn’t he’d drop it like a bass hook. Together, though, Rose and Dirk would both assume that the other would keep them in check and they’d end up bouncing off each other’s energy. They would only get worse and worse unless something stopped them.

Really, the only way to get them to stop when they were that bad was…

“Why would Rose be T-posing?” Roxy asked, throwing herself to lie sideways in the armchair. She popped a chip in her mouth from the open bag she was snacking on and looked around the room at her siblings. Dave was so grateful she seemed to have some kind of built-in radar for when the others were teasing him too much. The fact that he had to have his older sister bail him out was all hells of embarrassing, though, so he chose not to focus on that part. “You taking up internet memes or something? ‘Cause that would be hella dope, not gonna lie.”

Now that Roxy was here, there was no way she would let them do something without her, nor would they try to suggest she be left behind. Dirk seemed strangely resigned to the idea that his siblings were all going to join him in the park for his project today. He’d probably expected to spend the whole time working on his project alone. Well, it was his own fault for deciding to invite Dave along and then Rose. If he really didn’t want company, he could have just said nothing.

As it was, though, Dave wasn’t going to say anything about the drone trip. It would feel too much like he was rushing to his sister to make things better for him when he was perfectly capable of defending himself. Plus, it was Dirk’s project and she was Dirk’s twin. It would be up to him to fill her in on the details.

“I invited Dave and Rose, and I guess you too now, to come with me while I test out my drone,” Dirk explained again. “It’s for my application.”

Roxy ate another chip, chewing slowly while she thought. “Yeah, I need to send mine out soon, too.” She sat up with a growing grin. “Fuck, why don’t we make a picnic out of this! Like, bring sandwiches, drinks, all that shit we can eat on while we’re there.” Her eyes narrowed sneakily and swept over Dave and Rose in some kind of Look that she shared with Dirk. “Been a while since the four of us did shit together. It’d be great to just hang out and chat, don’tcha think?”

“I’m driving,” Dirk said, his tone brooking no objections. Dave and Rose exchanged suspicious looks as their older siblings filed out of the room, Roxy wondering aloud about which type of sandwiches they should bring with them.

“…Well that was interesting,” Rose said with narrowed eyes. Jaspers squirmed out of her arms and trotted after Roxy’s trailing scarf without a care in the world. She turned to Dave. “I don’t suppose you know what they have planned, do you?”

“Other than my humiliation, not really.” Dave shrugged. Still frowning Rose took a seat next to him on the couch. He couldn’t help but notice there was a good five inches left between them.

Sometimes, Dave wished they were the type of siblings who were okay with casual touching or leaning against one another, or even the occasional side hug. Rose didn’t need that type of tactile validation, though, so there wasn’t much he could do about it. As much as she annoyed him sometimes or got on his nerves with her psychology bullshit, Dave was still the older twin. It was his job, his duty to look out for her. If that meant respecting her physical boundaries and letting her run psych tests on him at random intervals, then so be it.

He sighed and glanced at his sister. Rose had the look on her face that she got whenever she tried to suss out a person’s motives. “Hey, want to make a bet on whether it’s going to be Roxy or Dirk who brings up whatever they want to ask us first?” To his relief Rose snorted and graced him with a genuine, if wry, smile.

“It wouldn’t be much of a bet,” she told him. “Roxy will obviously be the first one. You know she can’t help herself sometimes.”

“Yeah, but Dirk’s devious,” Dave argued for the sake of arguing. “He’ll probably work conversation around somehow so that we’ll end up bringing it up, whatever it is, and he’ll make us think it was our idea in the first place. I’m betting on Dirk and the long game.” 

“And you think Roxy isn’t just as devious?” Rose asked with a raised eyebrow.

They were still hashing out the terms of their bet when Roxy poked her head into the room to tell them they were leaving now. Dave put his phone away, stretched, and headed out the door for whatever bonding time/pseudo-interrogation the siblings had planned. He couldn’t bring himself to be too upset over the way things were turning out.

* * *

The drive to the park didn’t take too long and before Dave knew it they were set up in the back field section where he and Rose had met with John and Jade earlier that week. It made sense, though, since hardly anyone came to this part of the park. Dirk was confident enough in his drone flying skills that he wasn’t worried about accidentally flying into anyone, but other people tended to get…weird, around drone flyers. Constantly having someone come up to him to ask if they could fly it, or even to take a look at the screen was something they all agreed they could do without.

Roxy set up a space with paper towels, sandwiches in baggies, and some bottled water over at the concrete picnic table while Dirk carefully set his drone equipment up. There wasn’t nearly as much stuff as Dave had thought there’d be and the drone itself was a lot smaller than he’d expected coming in at just around the size of a paper plate. Altogether, there was the drone, what looked like an extra battery pack that could be switched with the one already on the drone, Dirk’s tablet, a controller that seemed like it could attach to the tablet, and his phone that he snapped into a groove along the base of the machine that seemed to be there solely for that purpose. Dirk had explained that, except for some of the smaller drones available, quite a few were big enough to have a space where you could attach a phone to take video with. This particular drone seemed just big enough to carry the phone without too much trouble.

“If it’s much bigger,” Dirk had explained, “I’d have to have a pilot’s license for it.”

“…even though you’re not flying a plane?” Roxy had asked so Dave didn’t. He had to agree, though, that seemed a little strange for something that he’d seen a lot of amateurs flying around on YouTube.

Dirk shrugged. “Some of the larger, and even medium large, drones can interfere with planes’ radar systems. That’s kind of a hassle, and the batteries have to be charged for a long time before you can use them. That’s why I made this; if it works, it should hopefully have about the same power and battery life of some of the larger ones without sacrificing speed or maneuverability.” He glanced back at them and seemed to turn embarrassed for some reason. “Or at least, that’s the plan. Hopefully the admissions board agrees with me.”

“They’d have to be blind not to,” Rose said confidently. Dirk smiled.

“Well, save that optimism for after the test flight.”

When he was ready, Dirk set the drone on top of the case a few feet from the table and retreated to sit on top. Dave was sat next to him and could look over to see Dirk choose a couple of options from the screen. Presumably they had something to do with the drone itself. Dirk saw him peeking and tilted the screen so they all could get a better look at what he was doing.

“Doing this,” he said, pointing to the options he’d chosen, “makes it so that the drone knows to consider the case as ‘home.’ You can get drones with a ‘return to home’ feature that makes it so that if for some reason the drone is low on battery, or it loses signal with your tablet, it automatically makes its way back to ‘home’ without you having to worry about losing it somewhere. Since I built my own from scratch, I’m also testing to see if the ‘return to home’ feature I programmed also works.”

“It’d be a shame to lose your drone after you just built it,” Roxy agreed sympathetically. It made Dave wonder how many iterations his brother had already gone through before this one, since Roxy seemed to know something he didn’t. Then again, Dirk told Roxy about a lot of things he didn’t bother telling Dave and Rose, same as Dave did with Rose. It was kind of in the twin handbook that you always told them everything, after all. He was sure that if he ever made the grievous mistake of not telling Rose about something and then she found out about it she may just decide to stop being his twin. He wasn’t sure how that would work out, but Rose had her ways. She’d make it work, and then Dave would be left alone, twinless, like most of the population of the planet, and that would just fucking suck. He wasn’t even sure how to not be a twin; he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. Maybe beg her to take his sorry ass back, except that sounded a little too close to some of the Freudian shit she kept accusing him of so he’d probably just have to deal.

Some may accuse him of ‘over sharing’ with his sister, but considering the alternative Dave was sure he made the right choice. Especially since it gave him a chance to annoy Rose and have her actually admit that she was annoyed. That was always fun.

“I’m just going to do a quick test to make sure everything works before I actually start recording footage,” Dirk told them. He slid some of the sliders on the tablet screen and maneuvered the joysticks on the controller, achieving perfect liftoff with the drone. Dave half expected his brother to call the whole thing a failure if there had been even the slightest bit of a wobble.

Roxy made sounds of awe as they watched the drone hover in place for a moment before taking off to circle around the clearing a few times. Dave kept switching between watching the tablet screen and the drone itself as it flew around in lazy circles. Dirk kept this up for a few laps before he started increasing its flying speed.

It was in the middle of watching the drone make its laps that Roxy struck.

“So, you two have been hanging out with new friends recently,” she said causally. It took every ounce of training Dave had ever had to stop himself from flinching. Rose turned her flinch into a full-bodied accusatory look at their sister. Roxy continued on, not looking at them and either not noticing or ignoring Rose’s pointed look. “You haven’t really mentioned them much other than being ‘not-friends,’ which obviously that’s a lie. What are they like? Do we know them?”

“You pretty much know everyone at school, though, so I kind of have to say yes,” Dave said. He shifted uneasily in his seat. He wasn’t sure exactly why he and Rose had both decided not to say much about John and Jade, even by name. It felt a little too much like they were hiding their friends or were ashamed of them. If there was anything that the confrontation at school yesterday had told Dave it was that he wasn’t ashamed of having John or Jade as friends. In fact, he was surprised by how much he liked them after only starting to get to know them after a few days. Enough so that he was starting to get strangely protective of them against other people.

Maybe that was why he didn’t like to bring them up? John had a reputation around school for his pranks, and while he wasn’t really disliked not everyone was okay with all of the pranking. And Jade, for all that she was a sweet, energetic and cheerful girl was still considered by many to be weird and strange. Dave knew what people said about them. He wasn’t really afraid of people saying the same things about him (…maybe a little) but he did care about what Dirk and Roxy thought of him. He didn’t really want to see the unsure looks they might have if he or Rose told him who their new friends were. He absolutely didn’t want them to tell him that he and Rose couldn’t be friends with John or Jade anymore.

Not that he or Rose would listen, of course. Dave was aware that his older siblings couldn’t tell him who to be friends with or not, but their opinion still mattered to him. He’d be crushed if Dirk or Roxy didn’t like John or Jade.

The unimpressed look Roxy was giving him didn’t help matters much.

“That’s not really that helpful of an answer,” Dirk said in that flat tone which meant he was being sarcastic.

“Well, I suppose that whom we are friends with or not is not that important,” Rose replied in the lofty voice she used whenever she wasn’t willing to listen to other people’s opinions. “Their names are John and Jade, if you must know.”

“John Egbert and Jade Harley,” Roxy said, surprising both Dave and Rose. Dave looked at his sister in surprise. Roxy brushed hair out of her eyes from the breeze and looked at them with a raised eyebrow. “What? Kiddo, you’ve been eating lunch with them all week. We were bound to notice some time, you know. We’re not blind.”

Rose glanced at Dave and back to their sister. She licked her lip and spoke carefully. “You never mentioned anything before.”

“Well, neither did you!” Roxy exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. She narrowly missed hitting Dirk on the side of the head. She gave him a quick apologetic look and turned her attention back to Dave and Rose. “Look, am I surprised that you decided to hang out with John ‘Pranking King’ Egbert and Jade ‘Doesn’t Give a Crap What You Think’ Harley? Sure, but they’re not bad kids. And you two’ve seemed a lot happier than you have recently, so obviously you’re not having a bad time hanging out together. Am I sad you apparently decided to just not tell us anything about this? Sure, I guess, but I get it, so. Whatever. You two are private people, and nobody in this family tells anybody anything. Nothing new there.”

Nobody spoke for about three laps of the drone around the field. Dave, for lack of anything better to do, grabbed one of the sandwiches and started nibbling on it. The urge to just say something, anything, to fill the silence was overpowering but he couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t just make the whole situation a thousand times more awkward. Roxy was right about one thing. No one in their family liked to tell each other things, unless they were your twin. Roxy also shared Dave’s penchant for talking to fill awkward silences, but it seemed that after her speech she wasn’t willing to say anything else. She glanced back and forth between Dirk and Dave and Rose. Rose picked at the hem of her skirt. She, at least, seemed to be contemplating something.

Finally, thankfully, Dirk said something. “So, who wants to get chased around by a drone?”

Immediately Dave latched onto the change of subject. “Me. I volunteer as tribute or whatever the fuck the saying is. I’ll outrun a drone. Oh, and you have the camera on it, too, so it’ll be like I’m in a horror movie or something getting chased by a monster. I’m all about outrunning monsters and making it to the end of the movie, one of the only survivors, ready to start life over in a new town and deal with my PTSD. Why does no one ever mention the PTSD that those horror movie survivors definitely have, Rose? Do you know? ‘Cause I don’t think it’s ever really brought up. Oh, but then there was that new _Halloween_ sequel…”

“Dave,” Dirk interrupted with a slight smile. “Are you ready to play chase with a drone or not? A simple binary ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will suffice.”

Dave rolled his eyes behind his shades but stood up with a bounce in his step anyway. He set his sandwich, safely back in its baggie, back on the table and looked over at Rose who was rolling her eyes at him. He still saw the smile she tried to hide, though. “Hey, Rose, you should join me. Horror movies aren’t worth shit if there’s not more than one person to be chased around.”

“I’m not sure whether to be offended that you think I would actually _run_ from a monster or exasperated that you’re obviously trying to offer me up as a sacrifice so you can get away.” She nevertheless ambled over to stand at his side. Roxy was trying to smother a smile while Dirk smirked at his tablet screen, and presumably the video feed on the screen.

“Ready for your close up?”

“How— _why_ is this what you decided your application video was going to be?” Roxy laughed. She leant against Dirk’s side to get a good look at the screen as well.

Dirk shrugged. “This is mostly just for fun right now. I still have a spare battery to use for the actual video.”

Dave looked over at Rose. “Then, what are we supposed to be doing? Just chilling in a field on a Saturday?”

“Run,” was Dirk’s only warning. The drone swooped in after them, though at a noticeably slower speed that they could easily out run. Taking Rose’s advice, Dave shrieked in what he thought was his best ‘ironic teen in a slasher movie’ scream and shoved Rose to the side as he took off. He couldn’t help laughing when he heard Rose’s swearing or the sound of the drone hovering around her head.

Dave ran for the other side of the field. He heard the drone start to follow him as well as his sisters’ laughter at his back. Dave had wanted to do something outside today; running around being chased by a drone operated by his brother was as good a choice as any. About five feet from the tree line Dave made a cutting dash to the side in an attempt to get behind the drone before it had the chance to slow down and change directions. And hey, Dirk had said he’d wanted to test out his drone. Having a moving target was probably helpful in this case.

Dirk had anticipated his movements, however. Just as Dave was looking back to see how far he’d managed to get from the drone the machine flew at him. It was still a good few feet above his head but the point still stood. Dave yelped and took off again. Rose, probably nursing a grudge for him sacrificing her before, stood to the side and smiled at his plight. Yes, he was the bad brother. It was him.

He spent the next ten minutes or so running around the field, making as many unpredictable turns and fake outs as he could. By that point he was grinning as well, though he didn’t bother trying to waste any breath attempting to laugh while running. Every now and then Roxy would yell out directions like ‘Left!’ and ‘Right!’ and ‘Come on, you’ve got him now!’ Dave wasn’t sure if she was addressing him or Dirk. Maybe both, since sometime she contradicted herself while yelling. Dirk made sure to never bring his drone within three feet of Dave in any direction, but other than that he was relentless in the ‘chase.’

Finally, Dave collapsed on the ground, his legs tired from what was essentially ten minutes of non-stop sprints. He’d gone longer before with some of the workouts and practice strifes he’d done with Dirk and Bro but the effort was still exhausting. Especially since he was just running around for fun he didn’t feel like trying to push himself so much. Dave allowed a tired laugh to escape and he couldn’t help grinning. Sometimes it was just fun to run around like an imbecile for no reason. Overhead, the drone made a few slow victory laps around Dave’s collapsed body and even did a figure eight or two.

Show off.

“Um. Hey, guys, what’s going on?” Dave lifted his head to look over at the new voice. John, for some reason, was standing at the entrance to the clearing next to Rose. He looked over at Dave on the ground, who offered him a tired wave in greeting, to the drone overhead, over to Dirk and Roxy on the picnic table and finally at Rose like he expected there to be some kind of logical explanation for what he was seeing. John shuffled his feet a little but still wore a grin on his face, if a little unsure. Dave was looking forward to whatever explanation Rose decided to give.

“John,” she said happily (for her). “I’m surprised to see you. Do you often visit the park on weekends?”

John seemed to come to the conclusion that nothing bad was happening, or at least nothing worth worrying about. His smile grew a little more genuine and he idly swung the reusable shopping bags that he had in his hand that Dave only just noticed. “No, my Dad sent me out to get something at the store. I always use the park as a shortcut, and I heard voices that I thought I recognized.” He looked around again. “So, uh, am I interrupting or something? ‘Cause I can go if that’s the case.”

“Nonsense!” Roxy called from the picnic table. “We’re just cheering Dirk on for the kickass drone he built. Dave decided he wanted to be chased, so we were having fun with that.” Not the way Dave remembered it but okay. “I’m Roxy, by the way! And this antisocial loser is Dirk. We’re Rose and Dave’s sibs.”

John waved and introduced himself. By this time, Dave had evened out his breathing once more but decided to continue to lie on the ground. It was pretty nice outside, for a mid-September day. Rose’s shadow loomed over him as a precursor to his sister blocking out the sun when she leant over him. She gave him an amused look.

“Are you planning on getting up any time soon? We have company.”

“Nah, I’m good down here,” Dave said. He lay on his back with his arms and legs splayed out like a starfish. “Rose, this is very important. It’s over for me.”

“I thought you just said you were good?” John asked, having moved over to get a good look at Dave as well. John had a mischievous smile on his face that promised only good things. Or bad. Depending, really.

“It’s called putting on a brave face, get with the program John, god,” he replied. John worked to smother his giggles while Rose didn’t bother hiding her amused smile. “Obviously, I’m a goner. I tried, but I can’t fight anymore. Therefore, Rose, I need you to take up the fight for me. Avenge me.”

John was laughing out loud now, his laughter joining Roxy’s over at the side. Dave could have sworn he’d even heard Dirk mutter ‘drama queen,’ but that could have just been his imagination. Besides, it wasn’t like his brother didn’t know what their family was all about.

“I see,” Rose said formally. She nodded her head slightly. “What if I say no?”

“I’d have to ask, ‘why are you forsaking me?’” Dave continued on in a rush of words when he caught the look his twin gave him. “Right, I forsaked—forsoke—forsought—I abandoned you earlier. Never mind then. John!” His new friend startled at being addressed directly but stood at attention with as serious a face as he could make. It wasn’t very serious, but Dave appreciated the effort. “Since I’m getting my comeuppance over here, will you make the ultimate bro-sacrifice and avenge me instead? You’re the only one I can count on, Obi-John-Kenobi.”

“That’s not how the quote goes,” John giggled. “But yeah, sure, I’ll avenge you bro.” He paused for a moment. “How do I do that?”

Dave caught Dirk’s eye and smirked. “Run.”

The drone, which had been hovering in lazy circles over Dave, came in closer. John looked up, straight up _giggled_ for some reason, and took off across the field. He threw the shopping bags he had with him over his shoulder to hit Dave square in the face. He sat up, sputtering, and ignored Rose’s laughter as best as he could.

Patting him on the shoulder Rose knelt down to sit next to him. “…How long do you think we should let this go on for before you’re sufficiently ‘avenged’?” 

Dave tracked John as he ran around the field, shrieking in laughter. Dirk’s drone was only barely following him at this point, not that that seemed to stop John’s enjoyment of the situation.

“Let’s give him another minute. Then we can have him critique the sandwiches we brought.”

The chase went on a little longer than Dave had expected, ending only when John reached into a pocket and threw down some kind of crappy smoke pellets as a distraction. Sufficiently distracted by the fact that someone actually _had_ smoke pellets rather than through any potential damage the smoke could have done to the drone, Dirk stopped his drone from following after John when he ran back towards Dave and Rose.

John reached out and grabbed Dave’s hand, pulling him back up to standing. “Ha! I’ve avenged you _and_ brought you back to the world of the living!”

Dave tried to cover up a snort of laughter. “You sure did. My soul, before it was so rudely brought back into the meat sack I call a body, was about to move on, secured in the knowledge that even if my own sister left me to die I still have at least one person willing to avenge me.”

John rolled his eyes. “Sure, Dave. Sure. Whatever you say.”

“Would you like to stay for sandwiches?” Rose asked, cutting off the rebuttal Dave was about to drop. “We brought extras, and I remember you saying you liked to try different things sometimes.”

“Oh, wow, that’s really nice,” said John, who looked uncertain. “But I don’t want to just, like, intrude on your family time or anything.”

“It’s cool, dude,” Dave said quickly. “We’re all mostly just here because we’re bored, anyway. Might as well have some company for that, you know?”

It took a little more convincing, and Roxy joking that “well somebody better eat these goddamn sandwiches I made, or I’m going to think none of you want to eat anything I made—that includes you, too, Dirk, don’t think I forgot you” before John was willing to sit down with them. Roxy bullied Dirk into eating one of the sandwiches while the others obediently nibbled on their own without further prompting. Dirk had by that point landed and turned off the drone and was trying to make a few last minute calculations while fending off Roxy literally trying to shove a sandwich in his face.

John chuckled to himself and leant in close to whisper to Dave and Rose. “Your siblings are pretty funny. And cool, too.”

Dave shrugged as nonchalantly as he could, willing his face to try to cool it a little with the sudden changes in temperature. Red was not a good look for him. Well, that was a lie; every color was a good look for him, but blushing at oblique compliments from his friends was the kind of embarrassing shit he could do without.

“Yeah, well, it’s like I told Jade once. That shit’s genetic.” He paused to chew his food for a moment. “I’m not sure what happened to Rose, but I guess we can’t all-!” Dave narrowly avoided falling off the bench from where Rose elbowed him in the side. John, the friend-traitor, rolled his eyes and chuckled at their antics. Or maybe that meant that he was just used to them by now. Dave was more willing to go with the second option.

“ _There_ you are!” Their group, almost as one, turned to look behind them at the tree line where Jade was just emerging from. She looked annoyed with a slight mix of exasperated as she walked towards them purposefully. John froze in his seat and started to slide down like he thought that might make her not see him. Dave had the distinct impression he knew who it was Jade was annoyed with. “Why do you never bring your phone with you, John? You’re dad called me since you were taking too long.” Jade stood in front of the table with her arms on her hips and looking just shy of disappointed. Dave’s poker face meant that he could keep his hidden laughter to himself with only the barest twitch of his mouth giving away his amusement. Rose, having inherited inscrutability from Bro, sat there calmly and watched the scene before her.

Roxy on the other hand was working furiously to hide her giggles behind her hands. Dirk at least pretended like he wasn’t paying attention to what was happening.

Jade continued on, ignoring the audience around her. “What have I told you about always keeping at _least_ five computational devices on you at all times? Especially when it comes to situations like this!”

“Oh my god,” John groaned, hiding his face behind his hands. “I wasn’t even gone that long!”

Dirk looked up from his tablet to give Jade a considering look. “That is very good advice,” he told her. Jade jumped a little, startled at being spoken to.

“Oh, um. Hi, I’m Jade, Jade Harley. You must be Dave and Rose’s older siblings?”

“I’m Roxy, and this is Dirk,” Roxy said, having managed to calm down. She still wore what Dave liked to call her Cheshire Cat smile. “It’s nice to meet you!”

Jade smiled brightly. “Nice to meet you, too!” She looked over at John and frowned down at him. “Unfortunately, I need to make sure I get this one over to the store _like he promised_ and then back again before his dad worries.” John sighed loudly and obnoxiously rolled his eyes. He still stood up and even picked his own trash up with him.

“We’ll see you two at school Monday!” Jade said cheerfully, grabbing John by the arm and clearly prepared to drag him with her. John had just retrieved his shopping bags when he turned back to them with a cheery smile.

“Wait, I just remembered,” he said. Jade looked back at him with a confused frown but didn’t do anything to stop him. “Want to go minigolfing with us on Monday after school? Jade got some coupons in the mail the other day and we were going to go, but it’d be more fun if we all went.”

“Oh, I’d completely forgotten about that,” Jade mused. She seemed excited by the idea, though.

Dave exchanged looks with Rose and adamantly refused to look at either of his older siblings to see what their reactions to the invitation were. Mini-golf was kind of…a really lame activity. But then again, Dave had initially thought that about Bingo Night and he’d ended up having a lot of fun there. Plus, with all of these hokey activities Dave felt like he could justify them all through the lens of irony so there really wasn’t that much of an issue. He was willing to go, but only if Rose agreed to go too. There were only so much uncool things he was willing to do on his own without dragging his sister down with him.

Rose appeared dubious at first until she glanced behind him at something. Dave wasn’t sure whether it was at John and Jade or at Dirk and Roxy but Rose gained her usual stubborn, determined look. Whatever she’d seen, Rose apparently felt personally dared now. Dave could work with that.

“Sure, sounds good,” he answered for them both. Dave wasn’t quite willing to make the commitment to say that mini-golf sounded ‘fun.’ “I’ll totally kick your ass at it, too.”

John smiled wide. “Oh, you’re on!” Jade shook her head fondly and continued pulling John along behind her. They disappeared into the trees and Dave couldn’t help but remember the Mysterious Creature and the ‘adventure’ in the woods that had started off their week.

“You know, I feel like you two have a busier social life than I do,” Roxy mused. Dave looked at her. Roxy leaned against the table with her head propped up in one hand and gazing at Dave and Rose evenly. She shook her head. “I’m not sure if I should be jealous or not. It sounds like you both are totes having so much fun, too.”

Well, Dave couldn’t argue with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a general reminder, don't actually chase people with drones. Since this is a work of fiction, the rules are fudged a little; plus, with Dirk being the one behind the controls the drone isn't actually in any danger of harming someone. Practice drone safety everyone!


	6. Mini-Golf with Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave, Rose, John and Jade go on a mini-golf adventure. Just ignore the weird argument, I'm sure it means nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Few quick things:
> 
> I really need to stop writing about them at lunch; those sections are always so awkward to write, for some reason.
> 
> The cryptid remarks come from a post that I found on Tumblr about Bro Strider. I thought they fit well, so expect more Bro is a Cryptid parts in later chapters!
> 
> me@me: Why are there so many italics this time around?  
> me@me: do it, coward.  
> me@me: Wha-?
> 
> Expect random pesterlogs as I get used to the formatting. I think that's everything, and not much happens but I hope you enjoy!

The daylight, the trailing glory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside like some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the blue gulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and saw the floating hosts of the stars. --The Island of Doctor Moreau, by H.G. Wells

* * *

John was practically vibrating in his seat at lunch when Dave and Jade sat down. Dave looked at Jade for some kind of explanation only to be met with an exasperated, and amused, smile and eye roll combo.

“So. Do I want to ask why John’s pulling off a really convincing Energizer Bunny impersonation?” Dave asked. He paused, contemplating. “Or jackhammer. I think jackhammer is more accurate, really. John, you look like you’re trying to dig a hole all the way to the center of the earth, maybe to place some kind of doomsday device in the core. Just slip that fucker in the core and walk away without looking at the inevitable explosion ‘cause of course cool guys don’t look at explosions. Guess dorks are now just that cool. Or, maybe an anti-doomsday device. You seem like the type to try to save the world instead of destroy it. Or maybe you’re planning on holding the world hostage…”

“Never be afraid to interrupt him when he gets like this,” Rose advised, sitting down next to John. “If given the opportunity, he can and will continue talking to himself for up to an hour. I’ve timed him before.”

“Rude.”

“You’ll never guess what I heard!” John exclaimed, unable to help himself it seemed. He ignored Jade swiping a homemade breaded ball with what looked like some bits of vegetable peeking out from between the bread crumbs. Not one to waste an opportunity Dave swiped one for himself. In retaliation, John stole some of the fruit from both of their trays. Fair was fair. Dave took a bite from the breaded ball and had to stop himself from groaning out loud from how good it tasted. Jade didn’t bother keeping silent, attracting a few confused looks from a handful of people around them who heard her. Normally Dave would feel some kind of second hand embarrassment from the looks but he couldn’t be bothered at the moment. He’d leave that to Rose.

Dave honestly couldn’t understand why John seemed to prefer the school’s shitty excuse for lunch food when he had _this_ to look forward to. The bread had a slight buttery taste to it, and he could taste spinach, carrots, some light seasoning and maybe a tomato? It was one of the best things he’d ever eaten, and Jade seemed to agree with him. She slid her lunch tray over to John and exchanged it for the breaded vegetable balls. Dave swiped another one for himself and one for Rose.

“Rose, you have to try these. They are _so good_.”

“They really, really are,” Jade agreed happily.

John rolled his eyes as Rose took a bite. Judging from the way her eyes widened his sister was in complete agreement with them. “Yeah, yeah, it’s good or whatever. Can we forget about that for a moment so I can tell you about the weird stuff I heard?”

“Please, expound on your newfound knowledge,” Rose said with a smile. She took the proffered food ball from Dave and took a dainty bite, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, and popped the rest in her mouth in one bite. Dave gave her a knowing look.

“Okay, well, I was helping my dad out around the house this weekend, and he kept sending me to the store to pick things up,” John began. Dave remembered ‘accidentally’ side-tracking his friend on one of those trips and hid a smile. Hopefully John hadn’t gotten into too much trouble for that; they’d had fun, though. “While I was at the store I heard some people talking about other people seeing weird things in the woods again. Like, some kind of beast, or monster, or something that would catch their attention, lead them further in, and then disappear if they lost sight of it. All that was left was some scratch marks on the trees and ground. None of the people could seem to talk to it or anything, or get it to respond to them, either.”

Rose pursed her lips in thought. “That sounds like the common folktale of will o’ wisps, though I’ve never heard them described as looking particularly monstrous. Most commonly they are glowing light balls that lead unsuspecting travelers deeper into marshlands or swamps, never to be seen again. I’ve also never heard of one having a corporeal body before.”

John shrugged. “I don’t really know what to tell you, that’s just what I heard them say. But then when I got home I checked out the website for that paranormal tabloid you found last week and they were talking about the weird stuff in the woods there!”

Rose’s eyes gleamed in interest. She pulled out her phone and pulled up the website herself. Dave had seen her visit the site off and on all weekend, and frankly he was a little surprised that she hadn’t seen the posts about the crap out in the Murder Woods herself. Jade leaned over the table, partly to hide the phone from any nosy teachers and partly to get a better look at the screen herself.

“I’ve mostly been interested in the _Testament_ ’s older posts,” Rose explained. “Perhaps I should have alternated with the newer posts as well.”

“Wow,” Jade said. “They sure do like to say aliens did everything…or maybe it’s just this one person?”

“I would have agree,” Rose answered. “It seems like this editor, Craven, has a particular bias towards interstellar phenomena.”

Dave idly stirred his mashed potatoes with his fork. He wasn’t really that interested in all of this supernatural garbage and shit like the others, but he was having a good time watching them speculate about ‘what might be out there.’ John in particular seemed really insistent that these events had some kind of supernatural—specifically ghostly—explanation.

“It just makes sense!” John argued. “These people have only been able to see this stuff in the woods, _where it’s dark_ , and then when they try to get a better look at everything it disappears. Into thin air! _Like a ghost_. It also explains why everyone’s been giving it weird physical descriptions, because ghosts or phantoms or whatever this is can look like almost anything. It may also be messing with people’s senses, so that may have something to do with it, too.”

“I’m not discounting ethereal phenomena,” Rose countered. Frankly, it was hilarious to see her so worked up over this. Dave and Jade locked eyes and shared a smile over their friends’ antics. “I do think it is a little premature to limit ourselves solely to this line of thinking, however. What you are describing could be attributed to any number of creatures of dubious zoological, or even mythological, origin. The attribute of being able to appear and disappear on a whim is not so unusual, if even dogs can do this now,” she ended sarcastically. Jade peered at her lunch food like it was the most interesting thing in the cafeteria. Dave didn’t blame her, when Rose got like this. Suddenly, this conversation didn’t seem so fun anymore.

John threw his hands up, clearly fed up with their current discussion. “Fine! How about you bring your ‘evidence’ or whatever for it being some Mysterious Creature, Mk. 2 with you when we go mini-golfing later and I’ll bring over my actual evidence that proves this is a ghost’s doing, and we’ll see who’s right.”

“That works perfectly well for me,” Rose said in a silky voice. Dave knew that tone as Rose’s version of a rattlesnake’s rattle. If you didn’t proceed carefully and cautiously, you’d be attacked without a chance to defend yourself. It felt a little excessive that she was already bringing that tone out just for a simple argument between friends.

Dave cleared his throat. “Oh-kay, that got a little. Weird. So, not to change the subject but let’s change the subject. Are we meeting you both at the mini-golf place, or should we pick you up and take you, or what?”

“Oh! You know, I hadn’t thought about that,” Jade said, taking his cue to steer the conversation back towards something a little less contentious. At least they were on the same page of ‘let’s avoid this awkwardness like it’s the Black Plague and we’re the poor peasants caught in the middle.’ “Usually I just walk places, or John’s Dad drives us if it’s too far.”

“Dad said he didn’t mind picking you guys up if we all wanted to go together,” John offered. Dave was really tempted to take him up on that offer if only because he wanted to see what type of person John’s dad was. All he knew about the guy was that he had a serious hard-on for baking, cakes in particular, maybe liked jokes as much as John does, is willing to drive John and his girlfriend around places, and prefers to make all of his food from scratch if possible. Dave was expecting some kind of baking, dad-joke telling, stay at home kind of dad, and he was going to be a little disappointed if he was wrong. On one level, Dave felt like he was hyping John’s dad up to the level of some kind of cryptid; on another level, he knew that there was no way the guy would ever be able to reach the cryptid levels that Bro managed to achieve on a daily basis.

Bro once came into Dave’s room while Dave was working on SBaHJ a few months prior. Bro had been brushing his teeth and just stood there, staring at Dave for five straight minutes. Dave, refusing to squirm or show he was nervous for any reason, had raised an eyebrow and asked if he needed anything. Still saying nothing, Bro had continued staring before offering a thumbs up and walking out of the room. He knew for a fact that Rose didn’t have to deal with anything like that, and Dirk had only said something along the lines of ‘yeah, he gets like that sometimes.’

Frankly, Dave assumed his whole family were cryptids until proven otherwise. So far that hadn’t happened yet.

“Hold on, lemme text Dirk,” Dave said, pulling out his own phone. “He and Roxy’ll probably be happy to not have to cart our asses around all the time.”

turntechGodhead began pestering timaeusTestified at 1:26 pm!  
TG: hey so john said his dads willing to drive us to mini golf  
TG: so you dont have to waste your afternoon driving us around everywhere if you dont want to  
TT: Well, I can hardly say no to an offer like that, can I?  
TT: Do you need someone to drive you back?  
TG: john says no his dads good for both ways  
TG: and he just tried to hit me for saying that  
TG: rude  
TT: Well, have fun with your friends.  
TT: And remember, you’ll be stuck in a car with both John and his dad twice after this.  
TG: fuck i think i made a mistake

“We’re good,” Dave announced to the table.

Jade gave him a funny look. “Aren’t your brother and sister right over there?” She pointed to the table where Dirk and Roxy were in fact seated with some of their friends. “Why didn’t you just go over and talk to them in person?”

“This was more fun,” Dave said.

Rose had her own reply. “Our family rarely does anything straightforwardly. Why have a conversation in person when you can have it through text messages?”

“Well I mean, if you don’t want to talk to them, that works,” John shrugged. He had his phone out and was texting as well, though, so Dave didn’t take him too seriously. Jade leaned over the table to get a better look at his phone screen, idly snacking away on his stolen food while doing so.

“Who’re you texting?”

“My Dad,” said John. “I’m letting him know that it’s okay for him to pick Dave and Rose up, too. Should we pick you up at your house, or somewhere else?” He looked up from his screen to glance between Dave and Rose. “He could even pick us up after school and bring you over to your house so you can get whatever evidence you want, or drop off your school stuff or whatever.”

Dave didn’t have a particular opinion one way or the other so he left the decision up to Rose. She pondered for a moment, looking thoughtfully into the foreground. Dave was sure that she practiced that look just for situations like this so she could appear ‘intriguing’ and ‘mystical’ or some bullshit. He wanted to believe that there was no way that that shit came naturally to her; that was a level of dramatics that he didn’t want to believe his family was capable of, despite experience telling him otherwise. Sometimes it was nice to cling onto impossible dreams.

“I think it would be best if your dad picked us up at our house,” Rose decided. “We’re already getting a ride from Roxy and Dirk. It wouldn’t make any sense to just have your dad follow them and wait on us when he can just pick us up later. Depending on how long it takes me to locate my copy of the _Grimoire of the Zoologically Dubious_ , of course. I would hate to make him, and you obviously, wait on us while we gather our things.”

“Plus, if he just waits in his car out in our driveway for too long Bro might notice,” Dave mused. “Unless you want your dad psychologically scarred by how insanely awesome he is, it’d probably just be better for us to text you when we’re ready.”

Jade giggled. “Your Bro sounds interesting!” she said cheerfully. “I kind of want to meet him now.” Dave was stopped from responding by the bright, cheerful girl suddenly narrowing her eyes teasingly. “Is he cooler than you, Dave?”

“What? I mean, Bro’s the coolest there is, hands down, so that’s not really a good measurement, you know?” Dave said hastily. He definitely didn’t notice Rose’s look of skepticism, no siree. There is absolutely nothing to be skeptical about over here. This was a skeptic free fucking zone, that eyebrow raise is not permitted around here. Only cool things, like rap, and dead things, and shitty ironic comics, or just anything ironic, really. And…puppets. Puppets were cool. Are cool. Nothing cooler than a puppet. All that sweet ass plush, and the rumps; my god, just those rumps. So firm you could bounce a quarter, or nickel, or dime, or some other form of currency on them. Why did people go around bouncing change off of people’s asses? Was that supposed to be attractive? Dave was thirteen, so he didn’t really get it, but his brother and father did, so it must be something Striders just inherently know, or grow into. Just ask Bro. Or Dirk. They could tell you—wait, these were just Dave’s thoughts. No way could his sister hear them…unless she really did have mindreading powers. But then again, she didn’t pounce on his, like, twenty Freudian slips there, so he was probably safe.

Probably.

“It’s always puppets with you,” Rose mused while John texted his dad. She leant an elbow on the table and regarded Dave like some kind of specimen on display. Dave had literally taken baths with Rose when they were both infants, and Mom kept a picture around of the two of them, probably at most about two years old, throwing a fit refusing to get dressed after such a bath time excursion. Even still, Dave had never felt more naked or exposed than he did right now before his sister and her weird voodoo mind/telepathy powers.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dave replied as his default attempt to dissuade her. “Besides, I thought I told you not to read my mind anymore.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “I hardly need to when I can just see from your expression. You always get the same ‘deer-in-the-headlight’ look whenever you think about them.” She paused, remembering something. “And I believe I’ve already told you, I don’t have mind reading powers. You’re just sadly predictable about certain things.”

“I call bullshit, but okay, whatever you say.”

“Dad says he can pick you guys up at your house,” John announced, having apparently either ignored or not even noticed the intensely embarrassing exchange between siblings. That automatically made him Dave’s favorite. Sorry, Jade.

“Do you have our address?” Rose asked, turning back to the original matter at hand. Or, rather, the second matter at hand. The original could stay dead and buried as far as Dave was concerned. He really didn’t need to see Rose and John square off over basically the same thing again.

“Tell me and I’ll direct them,” Jade responded. “I’m super good at directions and finding places!”

Conversation continued on like that until the end of the lunch period, thankfully not straying towards any more unpleasant conversation topics. By the time lunch ended Dave was starting to actually look forward to their plans of mindless fun. Mini-golf was a pretty lame pastime, but somehow just the prospect of sharing this lame and potentially embarrassing activity with friends made it sound enjoyable. Fun, even. There were certainly worse ways to spend a Monday afternoon.

* * *

Dave knew that he had hyped up his expectations for his friend’s dad, but meeting Mr. Egbert was something else. Sure, he had imagined John’s dad as some kind of jokester, or prankster, who maybe wore an apron over his clothes 24/7 just because he liked to bake or something, but the reality was some kind of polar opposite. Out of everything, Dave was not expecting the very definition of an office worker/business man in a legit suit without the jacket driving a dad van. Fucking hell, the man even had a pipe. Dave didn’t think he could make this up if he tried, and he just knew Dirk and Bro wouldn’t believe him later.

Mr. Egbert pulled into their driveway in an honest to god minivan and Dave had appreciated the sight for the sheer novelty. Dave was pretty sure his family had more kids than John’s family did, and they didn’t have a minivan. Bro would have happily gone out and bought one for the irony, too—painted some kind of obnoxious color, or even with some kind of ironic decal because of course.

John’s dad, on the other hand, seemed to have one if for no other purpose than to drive around a hoard of kids, most of whom weren’t even his. This was a level of Parenting that Dave had never experienced before and he hoped to god, or Buddha, or whoever was out there that his own parents weren’t watching this display. He could only imagine the competitive spirit either Mom or Bro would develop just out of the principle of trying to prove that they were the Supreme Parent. Or something. Frankly, Dave was a little too taken aback to really come up with a good metaphor.

All he knew was that, under no uncertain circumstances, could his parents meet John’s Dad. The world would surely fall into chaos, and it would be all his fault somehow. Or Rose’s. Dave was more than willing to shift the blame over to Rose.

Mr. Egbert expertly pulled the minivan up next to where Dave and Rose were waiting. He rolled the driver’s side window down and even tipped his hat at them. If nothing else, Dave could appreciate that he chose to wear a fedora for casual wear. “Are you Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider?” he asked.

Dave wouldn’t say that Bro had a ‘lax’ method of parenting—far from it, actually, Bro could be a total hard ass at times—but there was something about the stern set of Mr. Egbert’s jaw and the steady look in his clear blue eyes that had him standing up straighter and answering back without his usual brand of ironic sarcasm. “Yeah, that’s us, sir.” Goddammit, _sir_? For the love of everything, Dave fervently hoped that neither Bro nor Dirk were around to hear him say that. This whole thing was hells of levels of stressful and uncool. Already Dave was positive he could hear Rose trying to stifle her giggles.

Mr. Egbert nodded his head solemnly. “I’m James Egbert. I’m here to pick you up for mini-golf with my son and—”

“Dad, he knows who you are!” John’s voice came from further in the minivan. “I told him you’d pick them up, remember? You sound like some weird secret agent trying to abduct them or something.” Dave could literally hear the eye-roll in John’s voice, and was strangely comforted by the fact that someone else thought that this whole situation was just really fucking weird and over the top.

Mr. Egbert said, “Ah, my apologies. Of course, that was not my intention.” He turned his gaze over to Dave’s house. “Should I let your parents know when to expect you back?” That was the absolute last thing Dave needed.

“No, that’s okay,” he said quickly.

Rose seemed to be of the same mindset, at least. “As long as we’re back before ten they won’t mind,” she assured the adult. “If it comes down to it, we can text either them or our older siblings to let them know when we’ll be returning.”

By now, John had opened the sliding side door and was trying to motion them to get into the minivan already. Trying, because from where Dave was standing his arm motions looked more like he was trying to land a plane. Somehow this kid’s dorkish mannerisms were just endlessly charming, and Dave wasn’t quite used to that in his friends yet.

“If you’re sure,” Mr. Egbert said at last, watching carefully as everyone made it to their seat and were safely buckled in. It was just a brief flash as he was walking past, but Dave could have sworn that he saw Mr. Egbert’s mouth twitch into an amused smile. Suddenly, his being John’s father made a lot more sense. They may have had a different sense of humor—blunt, over the top theatrics vs. a subtler, wryer sense of humor—but the resemblance was definitely there.

It looked like Dave couldn’t let his guard down around anyone in the Egbert family.

At least there weren’t any whoopee-cushions in the car seats or anything like that. Honestly, now that Dave knew exactly who he was dealing with he’d expected there to be some kind of prank waiting for them in the car at least. Maybe Jade was keeping John and his father on their best behavior. She seemed like the type of person who wouldn’t put up with any of that kind of nonsense…unless she was involved, too. Great, now Dave was starting to feel paranoid around his own friends. That wouldn’t do. If anything, he expected to be pranked at least once on their mini-golf trip. When that inevitably happened, Dave would just have to maintain his usual stoic poker face in the hopes that that would discourage John from playing any more pranks. If he didn’t have any kind of reaction then he’d stop eventually, right?

Jade squirmed in her seat, clearly excited yet trying to hold the reaction in. “I don’t know about you guys, but this is my first time playing mini-golf!” she said energetically. “I’ve heard about regular golf, of course, and I read up on the rules but the whole thing seemed kind of…boring, I guess?” She shrugged. “When John told me about mini-golf, though, that seemed a lot more fun. And colorful!”

Rose smiled fondly at their friend. “I believe this is our first time playing as well.” She turned her attention over to John. “You’ll have to teach us, o wise one. And please, be patient.”

John smiled. “Oh, I am going to _school_ all three of you! In between schooling you on our monster, of course.”

Rose’s eyes narrowed. “Oh my, that sounds like a challenge. Consider it accepted.”

Dave leaned over to Jade to murmur quietly to her. “Do you think there’s any way we can just ditch them there? Or do you think they’ll notice?”

Jade narrowed her own eyes in determination. “I’m sure it won’t come to that. I’ll _make_ them behave if they keep this up.” She raised her voice pointedly. “Since this is a fun activity between _friends_ after all.”

John at least looked guilty, if only for getting caught arguing while in the same vehicle as his no-nonsense dad and whatever Jade was to him. Rose on the other hand schooled her face into a neutral expression that didn’t allow her to express if she was sorry or not. Dave sighed. His twin could be stubborn about the stupidest fucking things sometimes, especially since it only seemed to hurt her in the long run. For someone so clever, which Dave fully admitted Rose was, she could be surprisingly short-sighted when it came to whether she considered herself in the right or not.

Thankfully the rest of the trip to the mini-golf place didn’t pass by too awkwardly. Jade was a godsend for that by offering her own commentary about buildings they passed and landmarks she recognized (“Over there is where Mr. McGregor lives! He’s given me _so many_ gardening tips!” “That’s where I went hiking once and found that weird rock formation I was telling you about—here, I think I have a picture on my phone actually…” “John took me to get milkshakes there when I first came here! That was the first time I’d ever had a milkshake, you know…”). John offered his own commentary and, in a move that Dave couldn’t decide if it was amusing or worrying, started exchanging jokes with his dad.

Mr. Egbert could tell a mean Dad Joke. All fell before him in awe and cringe, with those mere mortals who attempted to get close to his level crying out in fear, reverence and self-loathing. Never before and never again would Dave find someone who could rival the speed, timing, and wit Mr. Egbert brought as he told joke after joke, and Dave was glad. There did not need to be two people with that level of Dad Joke skill in the universe. The whole situation left him reeling with the knowledge that John’s dad was the dadliest dad to have ever dadded. 

When they finally arrived at the mini-golf course, Martha’s Dino-Refuge, Mr. Egbert left them with the instruction to call or text him when they were ready to be picked up before leaving the four teenagers to their own devices. Dave peered up at the cheesy entrance sign that had a cartoonish depiction of a smiling, black haired woman posing next to an unrealistic depiction of a brachiosaurus. He’d never been here before but he’d heard classmates talk about this place. The whole place had a dinosaur theme—no shit—but also had a few other attractions other than mini-golf to draw in customers. There was the concession stand that served all manner of junk food along with their ‘big seller’ of snow cones. Which, yeah, Dave could admit snow cones sounded pretty fucking good, especially since the day had been a warm one. There was a separate building off to the side that housed various arcade games in half of the room with the other half taken up with various dinosaur memorabilia and ‘fun facts.’

Honestly, the whole place seemed cheesy, tourist trappy to hell, and felt like it was geared towards children on school groups. If nothing else, Dave trusted that he could have fun ragging on the cheese factor with the others.

That was his thought process up to their group actually needing to purchase their tickets to enter the place.

“Welcome to Martha’s Dino-Refuge! There’s four of you, right?” the perky teenager behind the counter asked. She looked to be in her older teens—maybe even a senior, if not a recent graduate. In fact, Dave thought he recognized her; he was sure he’d seen her at school once or twice with Roxy. “Do you want to play inside or outside for your safari trip today?”

“Safari trip?” Jade asked, her mouth twisted into a grimace. The teenager shrugged with a quirked smile.

“Yeah, sounds kind of bad, right?” she said. “Boss wants us to call it that, though. It’s supposed to fit with our theme.” She gestured around her at the various dinosaur statues and cardboard cutouts that littered the place.

“Is there a terrible difference between games inside and outside?” Rose asked.

“Yeah, which one’s more fun?” added John.

“Well, outside is pretty much basic mini-golf, kitschy decorations and all. Inside is basically the same thing, but it’s all black light effects.”

That admittedly sounded pretty trippy. Dave would have been tempted if it weren’t for the fact that black light didn’t work that well with his sunglasses. And it wasn’t like he could just take them off or anything—sunglasses were Strider Brand. What was a Strider without their sunglasses? A pretty piss poor excuse for a Strider, that’s what. Plus, his eyes were…well, they weren’t a ‘normal’ eye color, and Dave was happy for that. It set him apart from the plebs with their ‘normal’ eye colors. Frankly, who even wanted normal eye colors? Nobody in his family had them. Hell, his sister and mother had pink eyes for fucks sake. Red eyes, though…well, there were any number of tropes and assumptions people made over them. Dave didn’t need that, and he especially didn’t need his new friends reacting badly to them. Frankly, for multiple reasons, taking his sunglasses off was more hassle than it was worth. He was lucky the school allowed him to wear them with a doctor’s note.

If that doctor’s note happened to be from his own mother, well nobody really had to know. A lot of people tended to forget she had her doctorate, and it wasn’t like the school actually bothered to check to see what _kind_ of doctor was signing his excuse notes.

“I’m casting my vote for just sticking with outside,” Dave said.

Jade grinned at him. “I was thinking the same thing! I definitely like the idea of just wandering around outside instead of being stuck inside all afternoon.” Which, given what Dave knew about her and her island made a lot more sense. He was glad to have someone else support his decision to stick to the outside path. This way he had more support so it wasn’t like he was just inconveniencing everyone else.

John and Rose didn’t take much more convincing and within the next ten minutes they were at the first hole of the course, deciding who would go first. It ended up being a tossup between Jade and Dave going first since John and Rose were busy digging through their own ‘research’ to use as evidence for their theories. They decided they’d go last, with the final turn order coming out to Jade going first, since this was her first time playing and she was the most eager, followed by Dave, Rose, and John. In an effort to reduce arguing and keep the game going, Rose and John agreed that they would figure out their evidence first before presenting their arguments after hole five. Considering this particular course went for about twenty holes Dave was not looking forward to hearing them argue for most of the course. It had been funny at first at lunch, when nobody had really taken it seriously. Now, though, it was just uncomfortable. Jade seemed determined to ignore their “grumpy pants theatrics” and instead enjoy their game. She did, however, warn John and Rose that if their arguing got too bad she would “end it right there.”

Dave was just grateful that her potential wrath didn’t seem to be directed at him.

The game went on as well as it could. On a certain level, it was almost like there were two games being played. There was Jade and Dave, who at least tried to play seriously (or as serious as Dave could allow himself to be over _mini-golf_ ) and then there was Rose and John who only made token efforts on their turns. By far, Jade and Dave were in the lead, and their patience was starting to ravel as they went on.

“I’m saying that we should at the very least be open to the possibility that the Mysterious Phenomenon” great, she named that one too; now she was going to want to keep it “has the potential of being a dryad blending into the trees—which would explain not only the location but how it disappeared—but could also be a demon of a higher order that was able to cloak itself in the shadows of the woods. It would also explain a sinister presence that was deliberately trying to lure unsuspecting people to their doom deeper in.”

“Yeah, in an adventure novel, maybe.” Dave was quite sure John didn’t need to sound that skeptical. Oh look, Jade got a hole in one. Double points for her. “You can’t really believe in demons, right? It’s much more likely to be a vengeful ghost, or possibly even a White Lady; we’d have to check around to see if there were any murders around there area, of course, but the possibilities are endless!”

Dave sighed wearily, lined up his shot, and hit the ball towards the goal. The ball bounced off a few obstacles and managed to somehow stop within inches of the goal. He narrowed his eyes and gently punted the ball into the goal. The crowd went wild. Nobody could believe he’d made such an amazing shot. Standing ovations, everywhere. Dave looked over at Jade to see that she was just as fed up with this whole thing as he was.

They were just before hole five, but apparently Rose couldn’t wait to show off her knowledge. John, not one to let a point go when he still had one to make, rose to her challenge and started submitting his own theories. Already they had shot down vampires, leprechauns, and the headless horseman. Dave still couldn’t believe that those were actual, legitimate suggestions that they had made, but there you go. The bullshit train just kept a-fucking-chugging.

“That’s it!” Jade exclaimed when Rose didn’t bother taking her turn. “This was supposed to be a _fun_ outing. Instead you two are just bickering about—nothing!” Rose and John appeared taken aback by her outburst. They started to try to say something but by that point Dave was truly annoyed.

“No, she’s right,” he said, interrupting whatever they were about to say. “We get it, you’re both pretty, and both of your theories have merit or whatever shit you’re about to say. Just, can you maybe save the fucking arguing for later, or at least pretend like you’re willing to play fucking mini-golf with us?”

“Me and poor Dave over here are apparently the only ones actually here for _what we intended_ ,” Jade scowled. “Now, are your theories so important that you handed over ten dollars each just to stand around here talking instead of playing? Or are you willing to actually try this over again like _friends_?”

The two of them shuffled their feet. They exchanged embarrassed looks with one another.

“You’re right,” Rose said at last. “We came here for a good time with one another, and it appears we’ve ruined that. I’m truly sorry for my actions; you can’t think very well of me after this.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry too, guys,” John apologized, rubbing the back of his head. “This whole thing hasn’t been very cool of me. Especially since we were supposed to have fun, too! I’m not sure what came over me.”

Jade’s expression softened a little at their words. She crossed her arms and regarded them sternly. “Okay. So, let’s get this out in the open, settle on something, and then _actually play the game_.”

“Yeah, Jade and I are so far ahead of you in points I’m not sure you’d ever be able to make up the difference,” Dave added. He’d actually work around to forgiving his sister and John if they managed to stop with the pointless arguing, but for now subtle reminders about how far they fucked up wouldn’t hurt.

Jade looked between Rose and John. When she saw that there wasn’t going to be any interruptions and that they were taking her seriously she began to speak. “Okay, so, the Mysterious Phenomenon in the woods.” And just like that, the new nickname was official. Dave idly wondered how many different iterations of ‘mysterious’ they could slap on descriptor nouns for the random bullshit they seemed to keep running into. If they weren’t careful, they’d eventually turn into a shitty knock-off Scooby-Doo gang, and he had the feeling he’d end up being the stoner guy just because he was the cool one of the group. “Exactly what makes you think that it might be a creature, or a spirit? Reasoning only, no arguing!”

John and Rose took a moment to decide who would go first with their explanation.

“Well,” John started, “the description I found just _sounds_ like a ghost. It disappeared before people’s eyes, and nobody could communicate with it. There’s tons of documentation where people would think they saw something, or someone, leading them somewhere only for the thing or person to disappear before their eyes. All of them said that it was a ghost, or spirit.”

“For my part,” said Rose, “the Phenomenon sounds like it could be some kind of physical creature. It exhibits enough of an intelligence to lead people into the forest after it, which is typical of creatures attempting to lure in prey.”

Jade nodded to herself and looked between them once more when they were done. “Okay. Is it possible that you’re both right? That the Phenomenon is somehow both spirit _and_ creature?”

The suggestion gave John and Rose pause to consider. Dave personally felt that the suggestion was just Jade’s way of trying to shut them both up, but if they managed to somehow cooperate after all of this then he wasn’t complaining. 

At once Rose and John came to the same conclusion.

“Shadow people.”

Dave frowned. “Shadow what?” He’d heard of the concept, sort of. It was something that came up a lot in horror movies, especially those that had some kind of supernatural basis. Jade, on the other hand, beamed at them for coming to a solution that they could both agree on.

“It would make sense,” Rose continued. “Shadow beings have been documented for decades, usually with some kind of malevolent or evil purpose. They have also been known to physically strangle people, which would give credence to the Phenomenon having a physical enough body to leave behind markings.”

“They’re also essentially just shadows,” John added, “which would explain why they were seen in the woods and why they disappeared when people looked too closely at them.”  
To Dave’s amusement the two friends looked at one another once more and looked a strange mix of disappointed and annoyed. It seemed like once more they were on the same wave length, or at least were no longer at each other’s throats. That had been awkward to experience second hand.

“So the solution we were missing was the obvious one, that we were really dealing with both options,” Rose surmised unhappily.

“It’s like it didn’t even put any effort to trying to throw people off,” John pouted.

“Terribly unoriginal, I have to say.”

“And disappointing.”

“I’m glad you two are on the same page again,” Dave said, amused. “Can we get back to the game now? Rose, it’s your turn and I’m not sure you can actually get out of the penalty box with this one, even if you did manage to score a touchdown.”

“Dave, that is not even remotely part of mini-golf. What kind of point system are you using?”

The rest of the course passed by pretty quickly after that. Now that Rose and John were starting to put real effort into playing Dave realized that his statement about leading them in points was starting to be in jeopardy. He and Jade were still determined to play a mean game, though. Jade took probably the most time with her turn as she carefully and meticulously lined up her shots according to angles and arithmetic she did in her head to try and get holes in one almost every time. When Dave first complimented her on her continual good luck Jade smiled back at him.

“It’s just simple geometry!” she told him, eyes sparkling in a way he’d only really seen before when Roxy talked about science. “I just have to apply the right amount of force at the correct angle, and it’s easy.” Right, she was a math and science nerd. How could he forget?

Dave’s particular technique involved trying to match Jade’s course after her turn while also making it look like a complete and total accident that his shots ended up succeeding more times than they went wild. No one had asked yet, but if they did he was ready to tell them all about his natural talent, no, really, Rose, you just have to be born for it, you know?

Rose, on the other hand, didn’t quite follow in Jade’s footsteps but she did approach her target like she usually did everything else—as a challenge that could be dismantled piece by piece with enough concentrated effort. Her previous score was abysmal, even without the new scoring system Dave and Jade had put in place in an effort to try to make the game more fun before. Rose was steadily getting those points back and Dave was starting to feel threatened.

John, on the other side of the spectrum, didn’t seem like he was taking the game that seriously at all. He gave token efforts of lining up the shots before wildly swinging the bat (paddle? club? stick? Dave honestly wasn’t too sure what the right terminology was but like hell he was going to admit it out loud). It was honestly amazing if John even managed to get the ball into the goal within five swings, though the one time he somehow managed to get a hole in one their whole group cheered and celebrated like he’d won the whole game. John didn’t seem to mind his low score, though. He was having fun telling jokes and pulling pranks in between turns.

It was during one of those in between moments that John had offered to go get drinks for everyone. He’d just had his turn and with the way Jade was busy examining the current course he’d have plenty of time to make it to the concession stand and back. Dave leaned against a low wooden fence that lined the course and was heckling Rose to try to mess up her pitch. She was within only a few points of him now so Dave wasn’t above taking cheap shots to mess her up. It was all fair, though, since she’d noticed what he was doing and had started trying to distract him while Jade was setting up her pitch so he didn’t know which way to hit.

He had just tried to convince Rose that no, really, her shoes were untied (“Dave, I am wearing _sandals_. At least try something believable!”) when John came back with an arm load of water bottles and fountain drinks. He passed one bottle to Jade and handed one of the fountain drinks to Dave who took it distractedly. Dave made one last attempt to mess with Rose (“Look, all I’m saying is that it looks like you’re having a footwear malfunction, maybe you should do something about that.”) before taking a drink of what he thought might be Mountain Dew.

He took one sip and immediately spit it out, somehow managing to successfully distract Rose from her swing in the process. Instead of the refreshing taste he was expecting Dave had what tasted like salt, sugar, and hot sauce mixed together with a Mountain Dew base. He didn’t waste any time figuring out what had happened to his drink since both John and Jade were beside themselves with laughter.

Dave knew that the prank was coming, somehow and someway. It still didn’t prepare him, apparently, for letting his guard down around his friend who specifically did pranks when people weren’t expecting it. “I can’t believe you’ve done this.” Dave frowned and tried to causally wipe the spilled soda-malfunction from where it had splashed on his face. The key point here was to keep his cool. Shouldn’t be too hard. Dave Strider was nothing if not Cool.

Rose smiled at him unsympathetically. “I’m not going to say that you deserved that for trying to interfere with my game,” she said, amusement coloring her voice. “I’m also not going to say that I may have casually mentioned to our friends while you were distracted what your favorite soft drink is.”

“Yeah, yeah, I reap what I sow,” he grumbled. “Guess I should get a fresh drink that hasn’t been tampered with.”

John waved at him to stop him from leaving. It took a quick moment for him to calm down enough to string together a coherent sentence, but Dave was curious what he’d say. To Dave’s surprise, John offered another fountain drink towards him—also a Mountain Dew.

“Ah, I got two,” he explained. “I wasn’t just going to make you get a new one.”

Dave’s lips twitched into what could be considered a small smile. “Hah. Yeah, you got me good, bro. Totally didn’t see that coming.” He peered suspiciously at his new drink. “So, what are the odds that this one’s been pranked, too?”

John smothered another giggle. “Pretty good. It’s no good if you see it coming.” Well, that sounded ominous. Dave was willing to take it, though. The afternoon was warm and he was thirsty. If his new drink was tampered with, too, he’d just dump it over John’s head. He was sure he could come up with a good explanation by the time Mr. Egbert comes to pick them up. He took a cautious sip and was pleased to find it tasted exactly as it should taste.

Beside him, Jade snorted one last laugh and smiled fondly at their group. “I’m glad pranks are all that’s wrong with us right now. No more stupid arguments to make the day worse.” She looked pointedly at John and Rose.

John rolled his eyes good naturedly. “Yeah, well, once you agree on something it’s not like there’s much more to argue about.”

“As long as we’re all clear that, whether spirit or creature, it’s definitely not aliens,” Rose said firmly. Apparently she was still skeptical of that Craven woman’s opinion on the supernatural. John nodded sagely while Jade giggled to herself.

“Speak for yourself,” Dave said, ducking slightly while John took his shot. By a small miracle the ball managed to not bounce outside of the court’s range. “The moment you say ‘it’s not aliens’ bam! That’s when the aliens show up. I’m keeping my options open.”

Rose regarded him with the slight disdain that he knew she didn’t really mean. “You are the worst kind of skeptic. I ask you to have an opinion on something and you say ‘why not all of it? Why can’t it all be right?’ You’re so infuriating to have a debate with.”

“Looks like my master plan is working,” Dave confided to Jade in a stage whisper. Jade laughed once more and shoved him in his arm playfully.

“Come on,” she said, her smile full of mirth. “We still have more to go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rose. Rose that book is for *summoning* the zoologically dubious, it's not a reference manual. Rose, what are you doing.


	7. Research

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bingo Night once again. Rose makes discoveries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. Remember in the story summary when I talked about mysteries, and possibly solving mysteries? Well apparently I'm _finally_ ready to start doing that!
> 
> (At least, hopefully I can start on that that's more than just hinting at weird things happening around town. We'll see!)

“These violent delights have violent ends  
And in their triump die, like fire and powder  
Which, as they kiss, consume”

― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

* * *

Thursday started with the continuation of a new tradition. While Bingo Night was, as its name implied, a nightly activity Rose had taken it upon herself to begin preparations that morning. She fended off Mom’s drunken attempts to allow her to make something to take for the potluck and had had to promise every member of her family that she would not attempt to ‘use the dark arts at her disposal in an attempt to rig the game towards her favor.’ Dave had insisted on that last point, though Rose had it on good authority that he had at least enjoyed the aftermath of her machinations last week.

To her frustration, Bro had suggested idly that not all of their family were currently there to hear her promises. Mom, flighty and easily persuaded as she is, happily took his ‘suggestion’ and insisted that Rose include ‘all’ of their family. Upon faced with the prospective recriminations of her parents, she had concluded that a simple text message would suffice.

Uncle D had replied almost instantly with a series of question marks before deciding ‘you know what i dont want to know’. Considering he was Bro’s older brother and had partially raised the man, undoubtedly her uncle was judging the text message as yet another indelible part of their family’s character. There was no use trying to find an answer, for there was no answer. Honestly, Uncle D was Rose’s favorite extended family member if only because he was so easy to fluster and never got angry at any of them. It was a trait she valued; the fact that he also reminded her of her twin was almost certainly also a factor, though she would never mention it in Dave’s vicinity. He tended to be… _wary_ about their uncle for some reason she had long ago decided not to pry into. It’s not like she could say that she wasn’t the same way towards their other extended family member.

While Uncle D was simple enough to understand Rose’s grandmother, on the other hand, was an enigma that she could do without. If ever Rose felt that Mom deserved any kind of slack for her actions, it was out of the knowledge that she was raised single-handedly by Rosaline Lalonde. The woman was maddening. Dave always accused Rose of creating and perpetrating mind games; what he didn’t know was that their grandmother was capable of all of that and more. Seeing her made Rose swear that she would never put her brother through the kinds of things their mother must have gone through. Dave, for all that he was perceptive enough when it came to her own attempted mental manipulation, never noticed when Rosaline did the same thing. Rose thought that their grandmother may have purposefully kept that part of her life and personality away from him.

The worst, though, was the knowledge that…well, given the right motivation and opportunity Rose couldn’t quite say that she wouldn’t do the same things. It was like looking at a dark mirror version of herself. She’d grown up with the stories of their grandmother reducing her critics to tears through only a few harsh, pointed, _calculated_ , words. There was a part of Rose that admired that, that wanted to have the same power. And that scared her. She knew that Dave was afraid that she’d go too far with her experiments one day and that she would end up saying or doing something, purely out of curiosity for what would happen, and then go too far. Rose had the same fear. She felt she had come close earlier that week and it was not a good feeling. How her grandmother was able to be fine with herself and her actions Rose did not know, nor did she want to. Understanding would only make it easier for Rose to fall into the pitfall of using that knowledge for her own ends as casually as breathing. She was at the very least self-aware enough to perceive that about herself.

So when she got a return message for her grandmother that merely said A pity Rose carefully did not try to read any deeper meaning there. That was a rabbit hole she did not particularly feel like spelunking through like some blundering Alician character. Wonderland, while an intriguing concept in its own right, was not something she cared to try for herself.

With that side matter now carefully out of the way Rose began her preparations for tonight’s event.

As a result of her promise Rose was looking forward to a simple night of simple camaraderie. Gossiping with her brother and friends held a sense of pleasure that she so rarely had the opportunity to indulge in. She felt like she could talk about anything with them and not be judged harshly for her personal thoughts and ideas. That was a luxury that their family took seriously and treasured deeply. Rose pulled from both personal experience as well as through observation of her family members. The only ones who acted openly around other people were Roxy and Uncle D and, well—it was still acting. Having a social group who were considered weird and peculiar in their own right only emboldened Rose in believing that her personal views would be treated with respect rather than unwarranted and unfounded criticism.

Knowing this, Rose was at a loss to explain her words and actions earlier that week with John. He had a differing opinion on something that she considered to be central to her interests. It wasn’t a big deal, really. Dave, for all that he supported her in everything that she did, was not silent about his own disinterest in her interests nor was he silent when it came to disagreeing with her about anything. It was natural, even, to have differing opinions. They were each different people, so naturally they would view the world in different ways. Rose knew this, and yet…

Yet she had taken John’s dismissive attitude as a kind of personal attack. That was certainly not how he meant it, and she hadn’t thought that that was how he meant it at the time. Looking back at that afternoon Rose could honestly say that she didn’t understand her actions at all. She had even spoken with John about it, later, and they had both agreed that they weren’t acting like themselves and that they shouldn’t take any of what was said personally. 

Rose liked to think of herself as mentally sound…or at least, as mentally sound as she could be considering her home environment and her family. Her strange change in behavior could perhaps be explained by hormones; she was a teenager in the midst of adolescence. Honestly, hormones could explain away a large variety of behaviors. The odds of this happening to both her and John at the same time in the same way, though, made it an unlikely option.

After careful consideration and research into likely culprits and explanations Rose landed on an answer that initially seemed frivolous. The more she thought about it, though, the more mind control seemed correct. Having ruled out hypnosis (while she likely may have forgotten the act of hypnoses, their behavior changed almost simultaneously; unless she and John had been hypnotized in their English class, it was unlikely someone had hypnotized them at the same time without someone else noticing) Rose examined her ‘symptoms’ once more. A sudden change in thought process that did not make sense considering her past actions and thoughts, as well as a sudden onset of aggression aimed directly at a specific person. Mind control could explain both, though the means through which the control was placed as well as the purpose behind the attack required more thinking.

Rose chewed on her toast at the table thoughtfully. She eyed her phone for a moment and turned her gaze toward Dave. Dave, also eating toast for breakfast that morning, had on his usual stoic façade though his lips twitched every now and then like he wanted to smile as he typed away on his phone. Judging by his reactions he was probably chatting with John. Maybe even comparing breakfasts; why her brother was so obsessed over the food John got to eat she would never know. It may have just been something that growing boys were obsessed with.

Either way, his distraction was good for her purposes. Judging by the way she could hear Roxy pounding on the upstairs bathroom door for Dirk to hurry up with his shower, they still had about ten minutes before they needed to leave for school. That would be plenty of time to talk with Jade.

tentacleTherapist began pestering gardenGnostic at 7:12 am!  
TT: I hope I’m not contacting you too early  
TT: You implied you were an early riser, but I didn’t want to assume.  
GG: :O !!  
GG: hi rose!  
GG: of course im up don’t worry about that  
GG: i usually get up with the sun in the mornings  
GG: grandpa says im solar powered!  
TT: Well, that’s a relief.  
TT: How is your narcolepsy? Waking up so early doesn’t interfere with your condition, does it?  
GG: not from what i can tell  
GG: the doctor i saw just said to try to stick to a routine so i figure as long as i keep getting up at the same time every day i should be good  
GG: hehe  
TT: ?  
GG: i dont think weve talked to each other a lot like this before  
GG: i was just thinking its nice to have friends where i live and can visit with them :)  
TT: I’ve enjoyed talking with you as well.  
TT: In fact, I had a question I wanted to ask you.  
GG: :o !!  
GG: ask away!  
TT: This will perhaps sound a little odd, but have you experienced anything that you might call personality altering recently?  
GG: hm  
GG: im trying to think back but not really  
GG: how recently are we talking?  
TT: Within the last few days. A week at the most.  
GG: oh  
GG: i think i know what youre talking about  
GG: no i haven’t sorry :(  
TT: Don’t be. It’s actually a good thing that you haven’t taken leave of your senses like…some of us, lately.  
TT: I’m trying to narrow down exactly what might have happened to make us act that way.  
TT: So far my current best guess is mind control.  
GG: …  
GG: im not sure what to say to that :/  
GG: its not that i dont believe you!  
GG: actually it kind of makes sense i guess  
GG: i just dont know that much about mind control except from movies and stuff jake makes me watch :/  
GG: sorry i cant help with this! :(  
TT: Oh, now I’ve made you sad. That wasn’t my intention.  
TT: You don’t have to worry about helping me with my theories. This was mostly for my own benefit and peace of mind, I suppose you could say.  
TT: I’ll think on this some more and share my theories with you at Bingo tonight.  
GG: :)  
GG: sounds great!  
TT: One last thing before I leave you for school.  
GG: ?  
TT: Have you ever visited the website for Cassandra's Testament?  
GG: nope  
GG: i get it delivered weekly to my house so i dont really need to  
GG: should i?  
TT: Unless you want to read conspiracy theories about aliens invading our town I would suggest not.  
TT: Thankfully from what I remember at the library the actual magazine seems to have a more well-balanced approach to journalism.  
TT: I have also created my own account for the website, however, and will share anything particularly interesting if it should come up.  
GG: :D  
GG: see you at school!!! <3  
gardenGnostic ceased pestering tentacleTherapist at 7:26 am!

“Dirk! For the last fucking time, either get your scrawny ass out of the bathroom or I’m leaving you to _walk_ from here!” Roxy’s voice carried down easily from the upstairs landing. A muffled noise which she presumed to be her brother followed, though much too softly for her to understand. Rose looked up briefly and locked gazes with Dave.

“It looks like breakfast’s over,” she said as she put her phone away. Dave shrugged, took another large bite out of his already cooled toast and stuffed his phone away in his jeans pocket. Rose tried not to be envious that girl’s clothing did not so easily allow for such convenience. Rose knew the day one of her well-meaning family members got her a purse for her birthday or Christmas was coming ever closer. She supposed it was time to start practicing her grateful/thankful smile for when the time came. She never could understand why purses seemed so popular despite Mom and Roxy’s enthusiastic agreement to gender stereotypes.

They were inconvenient as hell if one wished to pursue cryptids and other fantastical creatures in their natural habitat, and Rose vowed that if one day she should come into control of the world she would make it sacred law that women’s clothing should have proper pockets.

Putting her brief moment of jealousy aside, Rose thought back to her conversation with Jade. Thinking back on that particular lunch period there had been something that John had said that made her realize that there was one connection that she had overlooked.

_“But then when I got home **I checked out the website for that paranormal tabloid** you found last week and they were talking about the weird stuff in the woods there!”_

It surely couldn’t have been a coincidence. Rose herself had spent almost all weekend perusing the archives of older issues. They had both examined the website and had then proceeded to exert hostility over their own interpretation of one of the creatures featured on the website. Whether _Cassandra’s Testament_ purposefully meant to inflict such a response on its readers or not was something Rose would have to look into personally.

She of course intended to search thoroughly through the website. Any potential damage involved was mitigated simply by Rose having already exposing herself to the website many times already. A potential argument could be made that she risked weakening whatever mental defenses she had by doing so but after careful consideration she rejected that idea. If that were the case there would have been reports of other people becoming unusually aggressive in the area even if she factored in a low readership of the magazine and website in the local population. Especially in a school as small as hers the smallest rumor tended to pass through to everyone.

Likewise, the possibility of the website exerting some kind of mental control over anyone who views it was something Rose desperately wanted to look into. The possibilities, from what she could tell, were that either there was something about the website that gave it control over other people’s mental states or there was a person who either worked or posted on the website that gave it that kind of control. Rather than being turned away, which she had the sneaking suspicion was the purpose of such a phenomena, Rose took this to mean that there was something on that website worth looking into. She wasn’t sure what, but there was something in her mind that was not letting her let this go. If she looked further, she would find something.

And whatever that something was, Rose would be prepared for it.

* * *

The long wait for Bingo Night to start was almost excruciating to bear. Almost. Rose managed to keep herself occupied by making a written list of things she wanted to look into specifically with _Cassandra’s Testament_. The obvious choice was to look further into any kind of incident involved with the Murder Woods. They were called that locally for a reason, other than Dave being dramatic, and Rose vaguely knew their history. She was curious what might have been left out of the popular telling.

The additional fact that there had been, apparently, at least two Mysterious Creatures spotted in the woods also made them definitely something to keep an eye on.

The next item Rose added to her list was to look up any local folklore for the town of Skaia and its surrounding areas. Maybe even Moyen had something paranormal in its history. Rose hadn’t thought to look before, an act that filled her with contrition and self-recrimination. That should have been her first stop when she decided to fully embrace the supernatural rather than examine it from afar. Well, choices had been made and decisions were being made now. Rose would just have to fix this little oversight of hers, preferably before Dave or anyone else found out.

The last item she marked down for her list before they had to leave dealt with the missing house and farmstead from ninety years ago. Rose wasn’t quite sure herself why she was so drawn to this particular case of the supernaturally interesting. It had an official answer, mundane as it was. Perhaps it was because it was so mundane that Rose had questions. Perhaps it was because, relatively speaking, it had happened pretty recently in the town’s history and yet no one seemed to bring it up. Rose had asked subtly around last week at Bingo and no one she had spoken to had seemed to have any knowledge about disappearing houses close to a hundred years ago. Certainly no one in the room had been alive at the time to remember the incident but surely gossip or stories about _a literal house disappearing_ would have passed from one generation to the next?

There was another, perhaps simpler, reason why Rose felt she should stick with this case. It was rather sentimental, but it had been the first instance of the supernatural that Dave had shown any kind of interest in, as fleeting as it may have been. Even John and Jade had seemed intrigued. Rose knew that she and her brother, as well as their friends, had different hobbies and ideas of fun. There was something to be said about finding a common interest, however. If Rose wanted to milk this ‘case’ for all that she could in an effort to have her brother and friends share an interest with her, and maybe even solve decades’ old mystery along the way, then why shouldn’t she? With her list in hand, Rose dutifully sat through the car ride to the Community Center in contemplative silence broken only by a few remarks made to Mom as she drove.

Apparently the woman had decided it would be ‘motherly’ to chauffer her kids around like they were going to playdates. While the idea wasn’t technically wrong, Rose was also sure that Mom was doing this primarily for the optics of being seen around town as a dutiful mother. Mom wasn’t quite as social around town as her kids were, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel she had a reputation to uphold. For now, though, Rose didn’t feel like saying anything since Mom’s new façade also meant that they had definite, continuous rides to Bingo Night without having to say anything about it. Rose was willing to take her blessings where she could.

Like before there were about a dozen people milling around the main lobby of the Community Center when Rose and Dave arrived. This time, however, a few of the people greeted them, having recognized them from the week before. It felt…odd, being greeted so familiarly by people well over half her age. Usually the only people she knew in that age range were her parents, her friends’ parents, or her teachers. There were certain expectations attached to each option, so interacting in this moment was something she was unaccustomed to.

Really, this was just further proof to the magnetic personality that Jade exuded like breathing. It felt like her friend could probably make friends with anyone she came across. It also felt significant, Rose thought, that it was she and Dave who had been invited to what was clearly a personal activity. Rose wasn’t quite sure what made her special enough to deserve that kind of trust but whatever it was she didn’t plan on taking it for granted.

Also like last time, Jade came over to greet them and lead the two siblings into the main hall where the game was being set up. They passed the time quickly helping to set up tables.

“Mrs. Delacourt called in earlier to say that she’d be here soon,” Jade explained as she and Dave sat a folding table on its side to pull out its legs. “Her ex is picking up her kids today, so that means we have more time to play tonight.” Rose helped them set the table correctly back onto the floor. Jade straightened up with an exaggerated sigh and looked towards the front entrance with a growing grin on her face. “Looks like John’s here early, too!”

John walked quickly to the side of the room where other people had set out the potluck buffet. He had a deeply uncomfortable look on his face as he set his dish down and hurried over to them. He grimaced when he reached them. “Someone honestly had the nerve to tell my Nana to her face that the casserole she made last week was a little dry. ‘Bland,’ was the word they used.” He shuddered, refusing to look at the buffet table. “I’ve never been more terrified in my life.” He turned to Rose and Dave. “You guys haven’t met my Nana yet, but Jade has and she can tell you that if there’s one thing she takes just as seriously as her pranking it’s her cooking. Just…don’t get any, unless you want your taste buds to be overwhelmed.”

Dave’s eyebrow twitched. “What, she’d really sabotage a casserole out of spite?”

John, perhaps not intentionally, had a comedically desperate look on his face as he shook his head wildly. “No! But she _would_ look up a deliberately complicated recipe with at _least_ twelve different spices as a way to dare anyone to call her food ‘bland’ again.” He shook his head once more, calmer this time. “Despite all that, she still managed to keep it eatable, too.”

“Note to self, never insult John’s family’s cooking,” Dave said. They continued to set up tables until it was time to start. Having heeded John’s warning, Rose made sure to take a little of everything except the casserole.

To her amusement, as they were sitting down with their paper plates and Bingo cards and markers John caught sight of someone in the crowd, sighed heavily but seemed to psych himself up for something and walked over to them. They exchanged some quick words, the other person’s eyes furrowed when they turned to look at the buffet line, and John headed back to the table his friends were set up at near the back of the room. Curiously, John searched through his pockets, pulled out his phone and pointed it at the buffet line to take video.

“Nana told me, very specifically, that I needed to tell them that she had made her casserole especially for them,” he explained to the table without prompting. They watched collectively in amusement as the person (presumably the one who had told Nana Egbert that her food was bland) inspected the casserole, took a sniff and then placed a decent helping on their plate. They apparently didn’t notice a few of the other people who had been earlier in line making surprised faces and noises when they took bites of their own samples. Their group waited a few minutes as the person made their way through the line before taking their seat. The person poked gently at the casserole with their fork, shrugged, and took a large bite. Almost immediately their eyes widened comically. They had a full glass of water next to them that they took large gulps from until they’d drained the glass. “I was also told, on pain of not being let back into the house, that I had to take a video.”

Rose noted privately to herself that she needed to avoid the wrath of the Egbert pranksters. They could, and would, strike at any moment without you knowing.

* * *

_“…Once again, strange lights have been sighted in our local woods. This is nothing unusual for Skaia Arbor as any longtime resident—or even neighbor—knows. Usually these lights are passed off as either street lights, headlights, or even the occasional night hiker with a flashlight, and admittedly usually that would be a correct assumption._

_However._

_The frequency that these lights have been spotted, as well as the variety, leads this reporter to believe that there is something unusual going on. The odd yellow or white light can be passed off easily. A string of colorful lights that, according to witnesses who have seen this phenomenon in person, flash in an unrecognizable and seemingly random pattern is something that we should pay attention to. And before anyone asks in the comments, one of the witnesses used to be in the Navy and is fluent in Morse code. Unless whatever is creating the lights is trying to tell us something that is reportedly along the lines of ADHDTRSSMPHKKSSNMDKPDTLNRVAMGKGHEHDXEKODFMCBCBW then we are still left with more questions than answers.”_

A short post that offered nothing too enlightening. Rose skimmed the update on _Cassandra’s Testament_ ’s website on her phone. Around her the Bingo hall had a nice, calming background noise of people murmuring to one another while Mrs. Delacourt called out letters and numbers from the front of the room. Truthfully Rose wasn’t feeling too interested in the game going on around her. Research was a much better use of her time, though she still gave half-hearted attempts at playing to appease her friends. Much to her amusement, Dave was pretending that he wasn’t taking the game as seriously as he was. She had a feeling that he was trying to prove he could win something on his own merit without her interference. Whether that person he was trying to prove to was himself, Rose, possibly Bro or some other figure in his mind was something she didn’t know.

Her research wasn’t going as well as she had hoped after a cursory glance through the website. She couldn’t feel any potential adverse affects from viewing the webpage other than a sense that the magazine was trying too hard to seem edgy and interesting rather than presenting facts in a coherent, meaningful way. Then again, the whole point of magazines was to generate interest so that people would support them. Clickbait titles weren’t unusual in such circumstances, though thankfully this particular magazine had at least tried not to make it obvious.

Rose didn’t believe in half-assed research and she wasn’t quite willing to accept that there was nothing more here. Surely, with how much the magazine was trying to push itself as a credible source for supernatural evidence they would have more information other than ‘there are lights, and they are blinking weirdly’? Rose tried a keyword search in the search bar, skimmed a few posts and articles that offered basically the same information and finally found an article from about a year ago that seemed promising.

_“Mysterious lights have been sighted in Skaia Arbor. As we regularly report on this very common phenomenon (often enough to have created a chart listing known sightings chronologically to as far back as 1867; see pg 3, or click the link here) our faithful readers may be wondering why we chose to dedicate article space for this. Other than keeping a historical record our purpose is to inform you that the lights this time have changed their pattern—a large, dim glow has been seen coming from the Arbor. Official sources in the mayor’s office have declared that the glow was a result of teenagers having a party out in the middle of the woods._

_There are many flaws with this ‘official’ story, however. Did these teenagers bring their own lights to the middle of the woods? Considering the duration of the glow as well as the wide area of people who claimed to see the glow, unless these teenagers brought out industrial lights with their own generators or battery packs to power the lights, it is unlikely that a simple campfire or even a larger bonfire would have been able to produce this light. The second flaw comes from the fact that, after careful investigation and inquiring around town, no teenager has so far come forth to claim responsibility for the alleged party. While it’s possible that any hypothetical teenagers who may have been involved decided to keep quiet, or may have even been ordered to keep quiet, about the party…well, these are teenagers we’re talking about here. They talk, they gossip, and they definitely like sharing stories with their friends and classmates. This reporter has been only able to confirm that the only talk about a party in the woods is that many of these teenagers wish they had been invited. It could have been college aged students who threw the alleged party but even that theory has flaws. After careful examination of the supposed location of said party, this reporter has been able to confirm that there are none of the usual signs left behind of a party in the woods—no drink cans or cups, not food wrappers, no scuff marks even, no sign of any kind of fire, and in fact no litter left behind at all._

_If there had been no party, as the official explanation states, then what happened? Why have our periodic lights turned suddenly into a steady glow? One possible explanation is that this is merely a repeat of events happening according to some currently unknown time frame. According to newspaper and town records this is not the first time that our Arbor has sustained a glow like this. If our reader is old enough they may recall a similar incident happening in the 1980s—that instance was also marked down as a simple ‘party in the woods.’ Before the 1980s our records get a little spottier in regards to recorded lights in the Arbor. The only other record that our paper has been able to find happened around the time of the infamous La Lumiére Homestead Disappearance, though admittedly the reported glow occurred two weeks after the Disappearance._

_In the end we are left with more questions than answers. What does the glow from the woods mean? To go even further, why are there lights in the woods in the first place? And why does it seem like our town officials are purposefully trying to keep us in the dark? There are no readily apparent answers, though if any of our readers have theories they would like to share, be sure to visit us on our website at…”_

Rose thought she’d read enough. Checking to see who the writer of the article was proved at least somewhat interesting—Penelope Craven had written this one as well. While Rose was starting to build some contempt for the woman who insisted aliens had to do with everything, she could at least admit that this Craven woman at least wrote articles that were becoming relevant to Rose’s interest of study. She vaguely remembered hearing about a ‘baller party’ in the woods happening a year ago. Mostly she remembered how pissed and disappointed Roxy was that she didn’t get an invitation to go. Dirk mostly hadn’t seemed bothered since he didn’t like socializing as much as his twin and he’d spent the better part of a weekend convincing Roxy that it couldn’t have been that great of a party if she hadn’t been invited. At the time she had believed the story that went around about some kind of party happening in the woods but she hadn’t connected it to any stories about mysterious lights. That alone gave her something new to think about, even without a probable connection to her next line of inquiry.

It almost seemed like every new piece of information kept leading back to the La Lumiére homestead’s disappearance. Rose determined that she needed to look further into her town’s history, particularly that of the Murder Woods—or, its official name of Skaia Arbor—to get a better picture of what was going on here. More than that, Rose was determined to visit the library over the weekend to look up public records. Surely there was something that would let her know at least approximately where the homestead had originally been located as well as any other factoid she could find. There was something going on here, she was sure of it.

Knowing that her search would turn up many results, few of which she was actually interested in, Rose next searched the keyword ‘murder.’ There had to be any number of conspiracy theories out there about the La Lumiére family and the most obvious start was with murder. Understandably, a whole host of articles and posts appeared as suggestions for her and almost none of them dealt directly with what she was looking for. There was the obligatory explanation of ‘the Murder Woods are called that because lots of murder happened’ in several of the posts with very few actually offering any concrete details. One or two actually listed case names or dates that she made a note of to check out later. By and large, though, almost all of the posts were gossip disguised as vaguely un-biased journalism.

She finally found one article that had an excerpt from the town’s newspaper at the time reporting on the events that happened at the homestead.

_“…This past Tuesday, June 1st, has marked a tragedy for our community. Mr. Jerome La Lumiére, prominent local farmer and active member of the community, is presumed dead along with his daughter…[illegible printing, part of newspaper torn]…last seen when Mr. La Lumiére came into town this past week for business. He met with his future son-in-law Mr. Jackson Alberts, as well as his former business associates Mr.’s Duncan Montgomery, Gregory Pierce, and…[illegible printing, part of newspaper torn]… the next day when Mr. Alberts stopped by the La Lumiére family farm only to discover the place in disarray. According to sources from the police, many of the building structures were gone while others were reduced to charcoal and cinders. There was no sign of Mr. La Lumiére, his daughter, or their family dog. When asked for comment, Mr. Alberts gave this statement. “I’m obviously distraught over all of this! I may not have always agreed with Mr. La Lumiére’s decisions but I cared deeply for Miss La Lumiére. I pray to God that they are somewhere safe, and I vow that I will not stop looking until they are either safely returned or whoever is responsible for this tragedy has paid for what they have done.” [illegible printing, part of newspaper torn] ...has noted that, despite his impassioned words, Mr. Alberts has yet to offer any kind of reward for information and has been seen sticking close to town instead of joining the on-going search party. Considering Mr. Alberts has been seen publically arguing with the presumed late Mr. La Lumiére and while charges were dropped for a public altercation between the two men…[illegible printing, part of newspaper torn] ...will be missed dearly. Mr. La Lumiére has been distinguished for his yearly charity donation as well as his family's volunteer work around the community.”_

The article excerpt ended there, much to Rose’s surprising dismay. Rather than standing as a news article reporting the disappearance under mysterious circumstances of a man who had apparently had good standing in the community, the piece felt like it doubled as an obituary. There was a phrase that the contributing writers of _Cassandra’s Testament_ seemed to favor and Rose could understand why—there were more questions than answers. There was something…unsettling about the account she’d just read. Perhaps it was because Jerome La Lumiére had been widely regarded in the community from the sound of things, but surely there would have been at least more effort put into figuring out what happened? And perhaps there was. Rose didn’t have access to the full article, or even the newspaper the article came from. There may have been follow up articles about what had happened, or at the very least some kind of opinion piece. This would definitely call for a trip to the library over the weekend.

Rose was interrupted out of her musings by a face moving close to her personal space in an effort to try to read over her shoulder.

“What are you reading?” John asked. His Bingo cards were wiped clean, as were everyone else’s, and there was low chatter as Mrs. Delacourt set up the next game. Rose took a moment to collect her thoughts.

“Research, mostly,” she replied. She tilted the screen his way for a moment, just long enough to get a look at the title of the article before she moved the screen away. While she hadn’t felt particularly affected mentally so far, she didn’t want to risk anything if the website really was inducing mind control. They were having a nice time out together and it would be a shame to ruin yet another group outing.

John wrinkled his nose. “Sounds boring,” he declared. “Aren’t there better things to do if you really don’t want to play with us? I mean, I get it, Bingo’s boring and I’m pretty much only playing so it’ll keep Jade from yelling at me.”

“I wouldn’t yell at you,” Jade said prettily with a coy smile. “I’d just look at you with sad eyes and ask you why you don’t like fun or hanging out with me.” John winced at the suggestion. Rose couldn’t blame him.

Dave leaned back in his seat and tapped one of the game markers on the table. “At the very least you could pretend like you want to be here,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I saw some of the little old ladies sending you some dirty looks for playing with your phone instead of playing their sacred Bingo game. You’re blaspheming right and left, I hope you realize, and they’re worried you’re going to corrupt us poor neophytes with your heathen modern technology. It’s like one minute were good little kids when bam! Now we’re teenagers disrespecting their authority over the gaming conventions. This is a den of analogue gaming, how dare you bring your blasphemous technology into this holy place of outdated shit. Our souls will forever be corrupted, and it’s all your fault, Rose. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Rose rolled her eyes. “Ah, yes. And the fact that at least four other people have been checking their phones religiously is also undoubtedly my fault,” she said dryly.

“Maybe you just need a hobby?” Jade suggested. “They can’t really be mad if you’re doing something they think is constructive with your time if you don’t want to play every game. It’s not like you’re really bothering anyone back here, anyway.”

“Maybe knitting?” John joked with a smile. “Since they’re upset you’re not doing an old person game, you could do an old person hobby instead. Can’t get mad at you then.”

“John, Bingo and knitting are not old people hobbies!” Jade scolded. “There are lots of young people that do both—like us! Right now!”

Rose…wasn’t sure how to take his suggestion. Obviously he was joking when he made it, but there was something there…maybe a lingering aggressive effect of the website? Hell, it could have been Rose’s own personality. It felt like he made the suggestion because he knew she wouldn’t take it. Like he was expecting her to fail.

Well, Rose could take up hobbies out of spite with the best of them. That was pretty much the entire reason her family ever did anything. And if she was thinking about things, knitting was actually probably the best way to get more information out of the older crowd here. She’d seen other women here sitting around and knitting while they waited for Bingo night to start; they tended to flock to one another, admiring patterns or asking each other what they were working on. All Rose really needed was an opening and then she was sure she’d be able to work conversation over to what they knew about the secrets of this town. Really, the older generations of this town were chock full of knowledge. The only trick was how to get them to spill that knowledge without wasting either their or your time. Rose felt she had the appropriate skills for getting people to talk about things they didn’t want to talk about. If anything, it would be perfect training for if she did decide to become a therapist. Knitting presented an interesting opportunity. She remembered that there were still several people in the room who regarded her warily because of her last name. Knitting… well, knitting was basically a harmless hobby to have. Who would suspect the young girl picking up such an innocuous activity to have ulterior motives?

“Uh-oh,” Dave said uneasily, though he tried to hide his tone like he was joking. “I know that look. Why do I get the feeling I’m going to be afraid of what that look means?”

Rose smiled at him. “I was just thinking I’d like to take up a new hobby, brother mine,” she said. “Jade, you wouldn’t happen to know anyone who would be willing to teach me the basics of knitting, would you?”

Jade, who’d been bickering easily with John, perked up. “You could ask Dolores,” she suggested brightly. “She used to having a clothing business before she retired, but I’m pretty sure she still knits for fun.”

Rose’s smile widened. “I’ll be sure to ask her after we’re done here.” To be honest, she was mostly bullshitting with her smile. She saw how Dave squirmed with her newfound interest and found it hilarious. Honestly, why would he be afraid of knitting? It’s not like there’s anything particularly dangerous or potentially mind game inducing about it.

“Yeah, that smile promises nothing but death and destruction,” Dave declared. “John, I can’t believe you’ve done this. I’m holding you responsible, and when the rest of my family asks ‘Dave, who gave Rose a new hobby to combine with the dark arts,’ I’ll tell them it was you. Next thing you know, she’s going to be knitting summoning circles or some other bullshit fucking thing. Maybe even make a tea cozy and use the patterns to try to tell the future. You’ve given her a new tool to play around with, and I don’t think you realize exactly what you’ve done.”

John rolled his eyes with a smile. “Yeah, sure Dave. Whatever you say. Like Rose is really going to summon Mothman, or Cthulu with her knitting.”

“Dude, don’t give her ideas,” Dave said hastily. “She’s already dangerous enough as it is.”

“What if I promise to only use my knitting for good?” Rose was amused with their suggestions. “I was thinking more along the lines of making scarves or sweaters for you to actually dress up in. I hadn’t even considered trying to summon anything, and I’m not sure that I could.”

“Well, not with that attitude,” Jade giggled. Dave looked at her in despair.

“Stop giving her suggestions!”

He really didn’t have anything to worry about. Not that Rose would tell him, of course.


	8. The Abandoned Arcade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade and friends explore an abandoned arcade. Ghosts summonings are attempted and...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was pretty fun to write! I will admit that I don't know much about summoning spirits or ghosts (that was never something me or my friends did at slumber parties; we mostly tried Light As A Feather, Stiff As A Board and mirror scryings, and I can't help but feel that we missed out...) so it's pretty improvised.
> 
> Also the next chapter may be up later than usual (though definitely not as long as the six month wait between chapters 1 & 2 /sweatdrop). I've been doing an every other week update schedule lately that's worked for me, but I'm in grad school, and my comps are next week with my defense the week after, on top of my regular school work. I most likely won't have the time to write like usual, but I will still try to get the next chapter out on the 12th (the day after my defense, ha ha ha...). 
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy this chapter! ^_^

Beyond the fence the forest stood up spectrally in the moonlight, and through that dim stir, through the faint sounds of that lamentable courtyard, the silence of the land went home to one’s very heart—its mystery, its greatness, the amazing reality of its concealed life. --Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

* * *

_“Wow, sounds like a lot has happened since we last spoke!”_

Jade smiled and rolled her eyes. Not that Jake could tell, from wherever in the world he’d decided to travel to this time. Honestly, she was lucky she’d managed to get a hold of him in a time zone where they were both awake at the same time. And he’d called her this time! Usually they texted each other since they could never be sure when the other person would be busy or awake to chat. Occasional phone calls were a rare enough treat that Jade decided not to mention exactly how long it’d been since they’d last had a conversation.

“Yeah, it’s been pretty fun,” she said instead. She stood in her house and looked around her in slight frustration. She’d left her laundry sitting for…well, a while. It was time to finally get this done so she’d decided to leave it for after school when she’d have more time but honestly she didn’t know where to start. She really didn’t want to complain, but supposedly simple chores like this had never been this difficult on her island. “Rose said she wanted to do research all weekend, too. I didn’t find out about it until Monday.” She pursed her lips, residual disappointment still lingering. “I would have helped, too, if she’d asked.”

_“Are you okay? You sound a little distracted.”_

Jade tried not to let her exasperation make itself known over the phone. Of course he would pick now of all times to be perceptive! “I’m fine, just…I don’t know how to use the laundry machine.”

_“So don’t…? Can’t you just do like what we did on the island?”_

“Apparently people don’t use wash basins and clotheslines anymore here!” she told him with a falsely cheery voice. John had just about thrown a fit when she’d suggested trying to do that. He’d said there was no way people wouldn’t think she was weird, or poor or something if she was seen washing her laundry in ‘public’. Her house was on a nice little plot just outside of the main part of town so the only people who’d see her would be people passing through from one place to another. She didn’t have any nearby neighbors and her house was surrounded by trees on three sides. She wasn’t sure what the big deal was. John had also said something about it being embarrassing to hang her underwear or other ‘personal’ clothing items up where ‘anyone could see.’ There were a lot more hang-ups living in town with an actual population of people than she had been expecting, really. “Nobody here has a wardrobifier, either, so I can’t just expect the clothes to be changed out and cleaned for me. Plus, it’s not like I could have brought mine with me on the plane, either!” Even forgetting the nightmare that the customs department had been—not to mention the whole thing about whether she was a US citizen or not—trying to bring any kind of large luggage with her had been pretty much impossible. The most she’d managed were her clothes, some books and other personal mementos, her Squiddle collection, and a few odds and ends.

The guns and other weapons… that had been its own headache.

 _“Well Christ fucking Christmas, I didn’t think about that,”_ Jake admitted with a rueful tone. Jade didn’t hold it against him. Her cousin/brother tended to be oblivious about many things that didn’t directly affect him. He probably actually was just washing his clothes out in the open as he traveled, too. He didn’t exactly stay in one place long enough to have to worry about ‘social conventions’ or whatever it was Jane had called it.

To be honest, Jade thought that that was probably a pretty lonely way to travel. And knowing Jake, he was probably starting to feel lonely too without anyone around to talk to except for strangers. He liked to explore, like their whole family did, but he was also the type of person who refused to give up on something when his mind was made up even when he clearly wasn’t enjoying it until it was too late. If it was his idea then he was prepared to die on that rock; conversely, if there was something he didn’t want to do then it would take Grandma English several hours of lecturing and fussing before he’d even consider it. Jake was pretty frustrating like that. If it weren’t for the fact that he didn’t like meeting large groups of people at once, Jade would have insisted that he come stay with her for at least a little bit. She knew Jane had talked to him more than a few times about coming over and ‘settling down,’ but that kind of suggestion probably hurt more than helped.

Really, her older cousin was so difficult sometimes!

 _“Well, why don’t you ask Janey for help?”_ Jake continued. _“She helped you with some of your other stuff, right? I’m sure she’d be happy to offer her assistance forthwith!”_ There was an excitement to his voice, probably because he thought his suggestion was helpful. Which, it was, but…

“I really don’t want to keep asking her for help, though,” Jade complained. “She’s already helped me a lot, and laundry’s supposed to be easy so I should be able to figure it out.” Plus, the older girl had already come out to her house several times already after Jade moved in to help her ‘get adjusted’ to her new living space. Jade didn’t want to keep making her drop whatever it was she was doing just to help Jade with something so basic. It made Jade feel incompetent and stupid to constantly be needing tutorials on things other people apparently knew, and it was rude to Jane to assume her time wasn’t as valuable. 

She knew that Jake probably didn’t get this line of reasoning, but at least he dropped the issue.

 _“You said your friend wanted to research something?”_ He asked instead. _“Am I allowed to ask what about, or is it some of dreadful secret?”_

Jade giggled and examined the washing machine in front of her. It had knobs that turned to different settings that looked self-explanatory enough—she just wished she knew what the difference was for all of them. Was there really a difference between washing clothes in hot water versus cold water? And what did delicate mean, and why was there a separate setting for that for both the clothes washer and dryer? She would solve this problem if it was the last thing she did! She could probably get away with washing everything in the tub again and then hanging the clothes up to dry in her house, but it seemed silly to do that when there were machines _right here_ that were supposed to do that for her, and quicker, too.

Laundry, it seemed, was starting to become her one weakness. She kind of wanted to tell John since she knew he’d get a kick out of it, but then he’d also worry pointlessly over why she was having trouble and she didn’t want that.

“It’s not really a secret, I think,” Jade mused to Jake. “There’s just been some weird stuff going on around here, and Rose thought she’d be able to find out more stuff about the town’s history at the library.” She perked up when she caught a glance at her reminders on her fingers. Oh, she can’t believe she almost forgot. “That’s right! Actually, we’re going ghost hunting later tonight!”

 _“Well, that does sound like a rip-snorter of a time, Jade!”_ Jake said enthusiastically. _“God, I wish I was there with you. It’d certainly be more interesting than looking at these twice-blasted old rocks. I was told there was some kind of ancient treasure associated with them but apparently even that’s just piss-rotting tripe they say for the tourists!”_

Jade considered her next words carefully. “Well, I can’t guarantee any kind of serious adventure here in Skaia, but you could always come stay with me for a little while. Then you’d get to meet John and Jane in person.”

 _“Thanks for your offer, Jade, but you don’t have to go out of your way for me,”_ he dismissed easily and without much thought. Jade frowned. This was the side of her cousin she didn’t like so much. He tended to be pretty selfish without much thought for how his words and actions appeared to other people. He didn’t mean it like that, and Jade knew that from a lifetime of experience so she tried not to hold it against him. He still made it so frustrating, though!

“Well, the offer’s always open whenever you want,” she ended lamely. There was no pushing him about anything. If Jake felt even the tiniest bit cornered he’d run away at the first opportunity. Jane, caring as she was, had had to learn that the hard way when she’d insisted multiple times that he at least escort Jade to Skaia. Jake had instead packed his bags, kissed Jade and Grandma English goodbye on the cheeks, waved a friendly wave goodbye to Grandpa Harley, and immediately set off on a world tour alone. He was still gone on his trip even though it had been about half a year already. From what she’d heard from her Grandpa, Grandma English was starting to get worried—and by that they of course meant exasperated. Jade had the feeling that if Jake hadn’t come back by Christmas then Grandma English was going to go out searching for him and drag him back home by his ear.

“Oh, adventure’s in that boy for sure,” Grandma English had told her once. “He just needs to learn when the adventure ends! I’ve tried to teach him responsibility, but that brother of mine is a horrible influence…”

Grandpa coincidentally left the room, and the island, for about a month after that particular conversation. He knew more than anyone not to get on Grandma English’s bad side unless you wanted to be yelled at.

 _“Crap. Looks like I have to go, now, Jade,”_ Jake said distractedly. _“Take care hunting for ghosts. Also, isn’t it a school night? Be sure to go to bed at a reasonable time, young lady!”_

Jade giggled once more. “Whatever you say, Jake!” she rolled her eyes. A distant click in her ear told her Jake had hung up. Welp, it looked like she didn’t have any more excuses not to do her laundry. She pushed back her sleeves, tongue between her teeth, and prepared herself for some light experimenting.

* * *

Like usual, John’s Dad picked her up to take them to the old arcade near her home. She’d tried to tell him that it wasn’t necessary since it was close enough she could walk there but Mr. Egbert hadn’t even pretended to listen to her. She was a minor, didn’t have a license to drive, and would have been walking either through the woods or near the roadway alone in the dark. There was no way he was going to let her do something so dangerous. When put that way she couldn’t really say no. She still felt bad having to make him go out of his way all the time like that, though. She liked Mr. Egbert, and from what she could tell he had some kind of office job that probably gave him a lot of stress…presumably. She had to admit that she didn’t actually know what he did for a living or how that related to hypothetical stress levels. His outfit and briefcase said office job, but John swore that he was actually some kind of street performer. John was also prone to exaggeration, so she had a feeling that probably wasn’t it, either. Jane had simply shrugged when Jade asked her and said that she wasn’t really interested since she had her future baking empire to look after. Nanna Egbert had merely laughed her usual ‘hoo hoo hoo’ laugh and hadn’t answered. Jade was starting to think that she would never get a straight answer out of that tricky old woman. Mr. Egbert never said what he did for work when they were first introduced to each other in person and it had been months since then. It felt like her opportunity to ask was over.

At least Mr. Egbert never seemed put out by having to drive them places, like to old abandoned arcade centers at seven pm on a school night in the middle of the week. When Jade had first heard about the place from that week’s issue of the supernatural magazine, she’d told the others that she didn’t mind checking it out by herself since she knew there were probably going to be issues about getting their parents to agree to let them go. They had all simultaneously told her that, in no uncertain terms, would she be investigating an abandoned building at night by herself. Jade was touched that they had seemed so serious about her safety like that. She also decided she probably shouldn’t tell them about the different times she’d explored caves and the jungle on her island by herself. John never asked her why she was so proficient with a rifle, and she didn’t see any reason to worry him with tales about traps, wild animals and once a harpoon gun.

To be fair though, the wild animals always tended to leave her alone; probably because of Bec. If anything, Jake was the one they always harassed. Well, at least until Grandma English found out about it.

It took some convincing, and then even more convincing and apparent bribing (Jade wasn’t sure she understood Dave and Rose’s family, but that was fine) before her friends’ parents agreed to let them stay out so late. John’s family agreed since Jade lived so close anyway so he would sleep over with her at her house. Rose and Dave on the other hand had apparently had to bribe one of their older siblings into picking them up when they were finished, however late that was. By the look of things when Jade and John arrived at the arcade it looked like it would be their big brother picking them up. He looked like the kind of guy who would rather drink energy drinks instead of water, so that made sense.

“Are you guys going to need a lift later, too?” he asked them after John’s Dad left. He seemed like he expected the answer to be yes and was preparing himself for carting around two extra kids however late they ended up staying. That was sweet, but not really necessary.

“No, we’re good,” Jade told him brightly. John had already walked over to Rose and Dave and was showing off the stuff he brought with him to help them catch ghosts. Mostly snacks, of course, but he did bring some candles, string, a freshly opened container of salt, and extra lighters. There was probably more, but that’s all she could see from a cursory glance. “I just live on the other side of the woods over there,” she pointed towards the tree line “it’s just about a fifteen or twenty minute walk. I would have walked myself over here, but John’s dad insisted.”

Her friends’ brother—what was his name again? Dirk? Dave always talked about him—lifted an eyebrow. “You’re going to go back…together. And I’m guessing his dad’s not going to pick him up from your place, then.”

“No?” Jade gave him a confused look. “Why would he? John can just sleep over, he’s done it before.”

Dirk gave her another strange look before seeming to realize something. “Ah. Got it. Well, if you two change your mind the offer for a ride’s still open.”

She gave him a smile and hefted her bag into a more secure hold on her shoulder. “Well, we’ll see how tired we are then. I don’t want you to have to make an extra trip if you don’t have to.”

He shrugged and looked back over at his siblings. Dave was showing off his camera that apparently had night vision on it and John was laughing over something Rose said with a secretive smile. Jade loved her friends. She loved having friends at all, actually, but especially friends she could go out and do fun things like this with. She missed her island, but it was times like this that assured her she’d made the best choice. “I’m not really sure how I feel about letting two kids walk home through the woods late at night either, though.”

Jade tried to smother a snort of laughter with mixed success. He tilted his head towards her, probably as some kind of cool guy way of asking her if she was mentally sound. Yeah, Dave’s whole family was cool and that just made Jade grin goofily. “Don’t worry about that,” she assured him. “I’m not sure what Dave or Rose has told you about me, but I grew up on an island with a jungle full of weird and dangerous animals for my whole life before I moved here. I guarantee you there is nothing in there that is scarier than what I lived with back then. And even if there was,” Jade showed him her large, overstuffed bag full of adventuring gear, “I am more than prepared to deal with it.” Sadly, the bag wasn’t big enough to carry her rifle in and even if it was John would have blown a gasket if she’d actually brought it with her. Apparently, there was something called ‘gun laws’ and ‘gun licenses’ that she didn’t have that would have made it illegal for her to bring a gun with her. When Grandpa had found out about that he almost didn’t let her come to stay in Skaia. She and Grandma English had talked him around, though, and as a compromise she carried at least one hunting knife with her everywhere. Along with pepper spray. And bear spray. And a taser.

Jade’s confidence appeared to put Dirk more at ease if his considering look was anything to go by.

“…I’ll still drop you two off,” he decided. “Just for my own peace of mind, if it makes you feel better.”

Jade shrugged. She didn’t have too much of an issue either way, though there was still a part of her that felt a little bad. It did help that Dirk seemed actually concerned for them, though he hid it like how Dave tried when he pretended he didn’t actually care. Well, she thought that was what he was doing; it was hard to tell since Cool Kids were apparently too cool to show their feelings to regular people! Yeah, the two of them were definitely brothers. No one could mistake that.

She looked over at her friends and turned to go. “If you really insist, though I still say it’s not really a problem. I should probably see if everyone’s ready, though.”

Dirk tilted his head and tossed his car keys in the air, catching them single handedly. “Don’t want to miss anything. Right, I’ll leave you all to it then.” He turned and walked back to his car. He actually seemed around Jake and Jane’s age; maybe they could even be friends, if Jake ever bothered coming around. Jade couldn’t help but smile when she saw the way his sunglasses caught the light from the setting sun off of their strange shape. So. Cool. She’d have to tell Jake about him later, he’d love to hear about her knowing a real life cool guy. 

Well, other than Dave, of course. Dave was still the coolest.

Dave, like he knew she had just been thinking about him, looked up when she walked closer. “So, hey. What were you chatting with Dirk about over there? It took so long I was afraid you two were planning on eloping or something. That would have been awkward considering we’re only here because we’re exploring abandoned arcades. That would have been a wild story to tell the judge officiating your spur-of-the-moment wedding, yeah, we totally met while almost trespassing. I honestly can’t think of a better way to start off a marriage. Which, fair choice on your part, but my bro’s gay so it wouldn’t really work out long term. Plus I already tried to set Rose and John up, and we’ve seen how that ended.”

“I believe it ended with me partaking in an epic quest complete with magical girl transformations,” Rose said wryly. Jade snickered in the background and John chuckled while shaking his head. “I would say it ended pretty well, for my part at least.”

“No, it wasn’t anything like that,” Jade finally managed to say. “He wanted to know if me and John needed a ride back to my place and I told him we could just walk through the woods.” John groaned at the thought but thankfully didn’t say anything else. She still shot him a look before continuing. “He said since he was already in the area he’d just drive us anyway, since I don’t live too far away.”

“Thank god,” John muttered. Jade, for his sake, pretended she didn’t hear anything. There was nothing wrong with walking through the woods at night! She did it all the time if she couldn’t sleep. She’d actually lost the sunhat Grandma English had given her before she left so she’d been meaning to look for it next chance she got. She’d probably be better off looking for it when it was still light out, though, so she couldn’t be too upset at losing her chance.

Rose gave her a considering look. She was crouched on the ground looking through her own bag to check its contents. “I have to say I’m relieved you took the offer. You told me you needed to sleep on a schedule and everything I’ve read agrees with that. Since we don’t know how late we’ll be out, I was worried about how that would affect your narcolepsy.”

Jade blinked. She looked down at her fingers where her reminders were located, and…yep. The icky black string wasn’t tied around any of her fingers. She must have forgotten to put it back after her shower. Whoops. “Oh yeah. That makes sense.”

“I knew you’d forget about that!” John accused. “Jeez, I was worried I’d have to carry your unconscious body back to your house through the woods on my own.” Jade wondered if she looked as embarrassed as she felt.

Dave gave her a weird look. “Wait. Did you seriously forget you randomly fall asleep?”

“It’s still a pretty new thing for me!” she tried to defend herself. Jade could tell from the looks she was getting that they still thought it weird that she’d forget about her own medical issues. Which…fair, she supposed. She normally wasn’t so spacey or forgetful; she’d asked the doctor she’d seen if that maybe had something to do with her condition and the best answer they’d given her was maybe and a shrug.

Rose took pity on her. She stood up, lifted her bag and looped her arm with Jade’s, pulling her with her as she walked towards the arcade. “I can understand that,” she told Jade. “It took a few months after we got Jaspers—my cat—before Dave finally stopped confusing him with my sister’s cat Mutini.”

“They literally look the same!” Dave exclaimed, exasperated, behind them. It sounded like something they probably talked about a lot. Jade giggled and leaned into Rose for a moment before taking the lead and pulling her friend with her around the side of the building.

“Come on, I found a way inside this way!”

* * *

“So, why are we exploring abandoned arcades again?” Dave asked as John crawled through the open window in the back. He was the last one through and the others stood in what looked like an old office space while they waited for their friend. “I get that we’re pretty much doing it because ‘it’s fun,’ but do we have any other reason? Like, did some poor fucker who worked here die here only to return and haunt the place he haunted the goddamn living in? Or do the fucking games come to life at night? Actually, why are there still games plugged in?” Dave looked through the door that led to the main room where a few rows of old school arcade games sat dormant. “Shouldn’t they have moved them out when they closed this place? Does anyone ever remember it fucking being open, even?”

Jade led the group through the door and into the main room. She turned on her flashlight and looked around. It took a few minutes to find where the light switches were located but the power was disconnected. It made sense, since the place had been abandoned. There was no one left to pay for the power. But what Dave had said also made sense—if nobody cared to pay for power, why leave these arcade machines in the building? Surely they could still be used and sold to other arcades or even repurposed for other projects. Jade eyed an old claw machine with interest. Maybe later, when they were done looking for ghosts and she had more time, she might come back and scrounge around for parts. It had been a while since she’d built anything and she was starting to get the Creative Itch that Grandma English always talked about.

Rose eyed the sprinkler system in the ceiling with interest and lit one of the candles she’d brought with her. When no alarms started going off and the sprinkler system didn’t activate she relaxed and set the candle on a prepared candleholder on an old air hockey table. John brought out his phone, pulled up a temperature app and started walking around looking for cold spots.

“According to the article Jade and I read, this building has been abandoned since around the turn of the century.” That explained all of the old school games, at least. “Customers had been complaining for a while before then about feeling something shove or poke them, about games that spat coins back out at them, and about seeing figures out of the corners of their eyes. One group that was here for a birthday party even swore that they saw a couple of apparitions playing one of the games here.” Rose walked up and down the room, examining the arcade games with intent. She made a full circuit of the room and returned to their group with a slightly frustrated expression on her face. “It looks like they must have removed the machine at some point. According to the story the birthday group told, one of the apparitions punched a hole through the screen on one of the machines. The owners of the arcade decided that the screen must have been broken by one of the kids and that the ghost story was just an excuse to get out of trouble. Nine different people claimed to have seen the incident, however, including a few who weren’t part of the birthday party. After a few more incidents like that one the owners decided to cut their losses and close down.”

Rose looked around the room with curiosity. “I’m not sure if they ever actually managed to sell this place or not. I think it might be in some kind of legal limbo where they can’t sell it and no one wants to buy it. Though, why they haven’t sold off any of the items left inside is beyond me.”

“Maybe they were too scared to come back in for them?” John suggested. He returned from his walk around the room undiscouraged despite not finding anything interesting. “Or maybe the people they were going to hire heard about the rumors and decided they didn’t want to come in either.”

Jade continued looking around the large room with interest as her friends discussed theories. She’d never been inside of an arcade before and the closest she had come was from seeing them in movies with Jake and John. The games themselves looked like they might have been interesting to play though she wasn’t quite sure how they were supposed to be played. There were dozens of joysticks all over the place, twice as many buttons and they all seemed to do something different. She passed by a platform that, according to the sign on top, was for “Dance Dance Revolution.” She remembered John telling her about that one, actually; arrows were supposed to come up on screen letting you know which section of the floor to press to line up with the arrows at a certain time. The whole thing was timing and rhythm based and was supposed to help with coordination between what you saw and how you moved your feet. Feet-eye coordination, you could say. Jade giggled silently at her joke. She walked over to a machine she definitely recognized—it was some kind of pinball machine. There were different cartoon characters at the top, some over-the-top cartoonish villain laughing mockingly at them, and what looked like seven different layers of dust covering the machine. Now that Jade looked around more she could see dust covering the entire room, undisturbed since the last time someone came in. It was lucky she didn’t really get allergies and the only allergies that John had were peanut and nut based. Rose and Dave weren’t complaining, either, so they were probably fine with all of the dust. The whole place held the musty, stagnant atmosphere of a place that didn’t have air circulating through it regularly.

She exited the row she was walking through near the front of the store and turned the corner to head back up the next row where her friends were waiting. John had pulled out his guidebook he’d gotten for his last birthday that listed different types of ghosts, spirits, phantasms, and even poltergeists. He was so proud of that gift; John had spammed her with messages for about a week afterwards telling her about the different ghosts he’d found within the pages. Jade smiled fondly at the memory. Rose and Dave gathered around John and the book and seemed to be debating the best way to ward themselves while trying to contact ghosts. Jade was about to prance over to them to offer to help when her flashlight beam moved over a section of the tile floor that caught her interest. Jade paused and cautiously approached the area.

There was a section of the floor that had been stirred up by something though even at a glance she could tell it wasn’t one of her friends’ footprints. In fact, it looked startlingly familiar.

“Hey, guys? Can you come over here and check out what I just found?” Jade asked, aware that her voice had taken on a strange cadence. “I want to double-check I’m not seeing things.”

Dave quirked an eyebrow and ambled over, careful to watch his step. “Well that doesn’t sound ominous at all—oh you have got to be fucking kidding with me. Goddamnit.” Rose and John followed, intrigued.

They stared in silence for a moment.

“Welp,” John said, and really there wasn’t much more that Jade could add.

The same footprints that Jade had found weeks ago, the very same ones that had led to the four of them heading out into the ‘murder woods’ and becoming friends, were sitting there on the dusty floor. They looked to be the same large size as the prints from the woods from what Jade remembered and they had the same characteristics—twice as large as a normal adult’s footprint, a weird blend of human and animal, and eight toes. There was a single set of two prints from both a left and right foot in front of them, and when Jade swung the light from her flashlight to the side she could see another set a few feet back.

“I thought you guys said you proved this thing was a hoax?” John asked, confused.

Rose furrowed her brows. “We declared the Mysterious Creature a hoax because we couldn’t find any other evidence of its existence other than the one set of footprints. We didn’t have anything else to go on, and there was nothing to say that it wasn’t just some prank.”

“So, it could still just be a fucking prank,” Dave concluded. “We found the other prints in the woods based off an article in that crap magazine and the whole reason we’re here now is because of _another_ goddamn article in the fucking magazine. Since I’m calling myself the designated skeptic, I’m saying someone’s putting these things in random places around town just for gullible idiots like us to find and report on. We’re becoming their own sources of credibility.”

“But then wouldn’t there be other footprints?” Jade asked and gestured around the immediate area. “If someone put this here they would have left some kind of trace just like we did. But we’re the only ones who’ve left footprints here, unless you think a stray animal left them.”

Dave tilted his head in consideration. “That’s a fair point. Alright, we’re dealing with some kind of Creature that can teleport then.”

Rose sighed in exasperation at her brother. “I wish you would pick a side and stick with it. Otherwise you take all of the fun out of trying to have a debate with you.”

“I said I was the designated skeptic. I’m just skeptic of everything. If I happen to wrap right back around to realist after all is fucking said and done then that’s just the price I pay.”

“For the irony, I’m sure.”

John leant closer to the prints with a frown. “What makes you think the mysterious creature can teleport?” he asked. “Why can’t it phase in and out of existence? We’re here looking for a ghost after all; maybe it’s the same as our creature?”

“That’s…a fair point,” Rose conceded. She walked back over to the air hockey table and started rummaging through her bag. She pulled out the same book she’d showed them last week, the one with the listings of all the different kinds of monsters in it. Rose had called them Eldritch Monsters; Jade thought the fancy name was kind of silly but didn’t want to say anything since her friend seemed to take this stuff seriously. And, well, Jade couldn’t quite say she wasn’t a believer of weird stuff after everything she’d lived withed on her island. “We don’t know for sure that our Mysterious Creature can teleport, but we’re also unsure if our Creature is the same thing reported to haunt this arcade. We have no idea when the last time a person was in here, so we also have no idea if the hauntings are still continuing.” She looked over at them after finding the page she was looking for. “At this point, we’re taking it on faith that there is even anything worth looking into here.”

Jade perked up and headed for her own bag, searching for that week’s issue of _Cassandra’s Testament_. “Well, we at least know that the Mysterious Creature is still active,” she said. “It’s been sighted again, this time in the woods close to my house.” That was actually part of the reason why she’d decided she wanted to investigate the arcade with everyone. If the Mysterious Creature was active so close to her house, and if there was already a place that was rumored to be haunted in the same area, then there had to be some connection, right? “Oh, I know I have that article around here somewhere…”

John walked over and joined them at the makeshift table. “I never know how you can find anything with all the junk you keep in there.”

Jade frowned. “It’s not _junk_ for one; everything in here has a purpose.” John continued to look skeptical. She powered through her explanation, not really wanting to get into anything with him just yet. “Everything’s organized, too, so I know where everything should be.” With the exception of a folded up magazine, apparently! Maybe it got shifted to the bottom of the bag? She moved aside some water bottles, pulled out a portable camping lantern to give them more light other than a candle, and found the magazine half hidden under a length of rope. “Ah ha! Let me see… Here it is! _‘…seen recently in Skaia Arbor…bright flash of light accompanied by a strange sound…hikers noticing missing objects…’_ ”

She tilted her head in consideration. That sounded awfully familiar. “You know, one of the last times I hiked in the woods I ended up losing a sunhat. I never did find it.”

“The description also fits,” Rose murmured. “‘Bright flash’ and ‘strange sound’ admittedly sound like the general, stereotypical description of someone—or something—teleporting. It’s possible that our Mysterious Creature has decided that this general area of the woods is its territory which is why it’s been sighted around here more than any other place. This arcade must fall inside its claimed territory.”

John frowned at Jade. “What were you doing in the murder woods alone?”

“Hiking? What I usually do in the woods?” Jade said. “I’ve never felt like I was in danger in there before. Even when I had one of my sleeping spells, the worst that happened was I woke up in a bed of flowers with my sunhat missing. It’s always been pretty peaceful there.”

To be honest, Jade wasn’t sure why people kept calling them the ‘Murder Woods.’ Aside from losing her hat, nothing bad had ever happened to her in them. She thought their actual name ‘Skaia Arbor’ was much nicer. It was a shame that hardly anyone actually called them that.

“Regardless, there is one way to find out if we are dealing with the same thing said to be haunting the arcade,” Rose said with a smile. She held up her book as well as a few candles. “Let’s try to summon our ghost.”

* * *

Setting up for the ghost summoning took more time than Jade had expected. She thought that they’d probably just draw an outline of a circle in chalk or some other kind of material, light a few candles and chant something that sounded vaguely Latin. Instead, Rose and John directed her and Dave to clear out as large a space as they could manage in the middle of the room while they set things up both inside and outside of the chalk circle. The two had even made marks for where they should stand later! Jade and Dave couldn’t manage to push any of the game machines back or to the side even with the both of them trying together, leaving them to try to wipe away the dust on the floor with some old rags Jade kept in her bag as best they could. Dave made sure to take a few more photos of the strange footprints in case something happened during the summoning that would disturb them.

Rose and John, on the other hand, were in the middle of a debate over whether they should add a salt circle around the chalk circle to keep anything they summon from getting at them or if that would instead be considered rude.

“Oh, come on, Rose,” John argued. “Who cares if the ghosts think we’re rude? We’re already in their space and setting up for a summoning. I don’t think they’d really care if we added a salt circle on top of the summoning circle.”

“There is still something to be said for setting the stage, however,” Rose countered. “It’s one thing to come into their territory and attempt a summoning—if anything, that shows a polite interest. If we add the salt circle, they may take it as our feeling insincere about actually wanting to contact them.”

John looked like he was about to say something else when he narrowed his eyes. Jade took the moment to check outside to see if full night had fallen yet. It was completely dark out, so it looked like they were good. Grandpa always said that the best time to summon the spirits of the afterlife was when it was too dark out to tell who you were contacting. Of course, he also would then tell Jade to be prepared to engage, fight and capture whatever it was she was summoning but she thought it would be best to leave that part out of this ritual. The ghosts would _definitely_ take that as a sign of rudeness.

“You’re not being serious right now, are you?” John asked.

Rose smiled once more. “I am almost certainly fucking with you. I do think that the salt circle is a bit of an overkill, though. According to my book of _Summoning the Zoologically Dubious_ , the chalk summoning circle should be enough to protect us. The salt would just be extra.”

John considered this. “And the candles?”

“Partly needed to provide energy for the spirits to grab onto to help them manifest before us, and partly because I like it.” Rose saw the looks the others gave her and shrugged. “I’m allowed to have my own aesthetics and preferences.”

“So long as you’re not trying to push them on me I couldn’t give a shit,” Dave muttered from near the front doors to the building. Jade walked over to stand next to him and peered out the doors.

“So, Mr. Cool Kid,” she said in a teasing voice. His lips twitched slightly which Jade took as a win. She’d make him crack one of these days! “What kind of Cool Kid Business do you have going on over here?”

“Oh, you know,” Dave said, leaning casually against the wall. “Checking perimeters, making sure no nosy fucking people or cops or whatever comes around trying to stop this goddamn knock-off séance before it even has a chance to happen. Only thing worse than a discount shitty summoning is an interrupted discount shitty summoning. Like, can you imagine if the cops showed up right now? Oh, no officers, we’re not actually practicing black magic or anything, we’re just trying to summon the dead. Wait, what if they want to join us? Should we tell them we have this handled? They may try to take over our ritual for us. That would suck balls.”

Jade giggled. “You know what I think?” she asked slyly. “ _I_ think you’re just bored and looking for something to do.” Dave tilted his head by a slight degree. That probably meant he was agreeing with her, or at least acknowledging what she said. “It’s not like there’s much for us to do right now; John and Rose seem like they have this handled, and we can’t even do the summoning until midnight, anyway.”

They’d unanimously agreed to try the summoning at midnight by pure virtue of that being one of those ‘mystical’ times that Hollywood and the media kept pushing as being a creepy time to do creepy things. Rose simplified their reasoning as midnight seeming ‘thematic,’ which Jade couldn’t really disagree with. If you had to summon a ghost in an abandoned arcade at night, why wouldn’t you do it at midnight? It would just feel like you were missing out, otherwise.

Jade looked over at her friends kneeling around the summoning circle, going over a few more preparations before the big event. John had borrowed Rose’s book and was reading over the particular ritual that they were going to be attempting. He looked periodically back and forth between Rose’s book and his own about spirits, probably trying to compare the ritual with what they were likely to see.

“Hey, the book says we need crystals for this,” John pointed out.

Rose shrugged, not looking up from where she was organizing her ‘equipment’ of a few extra candles, a lighter, a couple baggies filled with some kind of powder, and what looked like a bag of gummy worms sitting next to a box of apple juice. Jade thought she remembered them explaining that they were ‘offerings’ for whatever spirit they ended up summoning. “From what I could tell the crystals play pretty much the same role as the candles and were therefore unnecessary. I have to admit, they would be ostentatious even for me.” She looked up with another of her small smiles. “Plus, I would just feel silly with them.”

John nodded. “That’s fair.”

Jade turned back to Dave. “Hey, do you know what time it is?” She knew they still had at least another hour or so before they needed to get ready. In the meantime, though, she was sure they could probably find something fun to do.

“Time for you to get a watch,” Dave, John and Rose intoned as one. Jade couldn’t help laughing at how silly the whole thing was.

“Pft, yeah, like I haven’t heard that one before.” Jade rolled her eyes. She pulled out her phone to check the time—9:47—and saw that she had missed a few text messages from Jake. That was weird; she knew she told him that she’d be busy tonight. Maybe he got their time zones mixed up again?

golgothasTerror began pestering gardenGnostic at 8:23!

GT: Hey jade i know you said youd be busy tonight but i wanted to leave you a little message to clear the air as it were.  
GT: I wanted to say that im terribly sorry for the currish way I left you in our last conversation. That was unbearably rude of me and you deserve a better send off than just a simple arrivederci into the night.  
GT: I wish you the best on your ghost hunting. Remember to beat that dastardly spirit into submission if the need arises!!

golgothasTerror ceased pestering gardenGnostic at 8:29!

Jade smiled and sent a quick text back. Jake could be so sweet sometimes…usually when he thought he’d messed up, but the thought still counted.

“Jake texted me,” Jade said to the room. She was mainly talking to John, but Rose and Dave were her friends, now, too. It wasn’t like she was trying to keep this kind of information from them or anything. “He’s wishing us luck on our ghost hunting.”

John snorted and rolled his eyes. “He probably also wants us to get into a fist fight with whatever we end up summoning, too.”

“Like you wouldn’t want to try to catch a ghost, either!” Jade shrugged though, not able to deny his words. “I think he mostly gets that from Grandpa. Grandpa’s always trying to get us to get into fisticuffs, or scrums, or whatever he calls it with weird things we find. He’s the one who kept insisting that I not go anywhere without a gun back on the island.”

Dave stared at her through his sunglasses. Jade thought it was a little weird that he kept them on when it was clearly dark outside and the only light they had in the building came from candles and a portable, battery powered camping lantern. Maybe he was just too cool to take them off? “The more I hear about your family, the less I suddenly understand. Who makes a kid, much less a girl, carry around a fucking gun? The hell kind of place was your island?”

“I always called it Hell Murder Island!” John called, not looking up from the books in front of him. Drama queen.

Jade shrugged again and started Googling her grandpa. She walked over to Dave’s side and they sat down against the front wall next to one another. She angled her phone screen so he could see it too. “An explorer, I guess?” She said about her grandfather. She brought up one of his publicity photos from when he was younger and more active in his adventures. “He and his sister made a lot of money in robotics, though Grandma English’s really the one who keeps up with that anymore. Nowadays Grandpa likes to explore the world, go on safaris, and find ancient ruins to break into.” Jade personally felt proud knowing that her Grandpa was such a busy and important person. He certainly made it a lot of fun living on the island whenever he’d tell stories about his adventures and bring back things from his expeditions… Though, less-so when he’d return with one of his ‘hunting trophies.’ Those always gave Jade the creeps, and she always felt so sad for the poor dead animals, too.

Dave whistled lowly as he read through one of the articles pulled up about Grandpa Harley but otherwise didn’t react to her story. “Shit, Jade, you were raised by motherfucking Indiana Jones himself. If Indy was a big-game hunter and, like, sixty years old. No wonder you—wait, is that a _mounted shark’s head?_ ” He clicked on one of the few promotional pictures Grandpa Harley had allowed taken at their home on the island, the one of him standing proudly in his den that was full to bursting with taxidermy animals and mounted animal heads.

Jade shuddered, remembering that room. That was one room she definitely didn’t miss. “I always hated that picture,” she mused aloud. “If I remember right, I think Grandma English said something about the _Indiana Jones_ movies being based on Grandpa. Jake was so excited when he found out that he immediately tried to build his own raft so he could go off traveling around the world, too. Grandma English was so mad about that, too, since Jake was only thirteen at the time.”

“Jegus, Harley, your family’s nuts,” Dave shook his head. Jade beamed at him.

* * *

They spent the next hour and a half talking quietly between the four of them, waiting for when it would be close to time to start the summoning ritual. To pass the time they started up a small game of truth or dare that eventually ended in a very embarrassed John and Dave while Rose and Jade sat back in shameless amusement.

“Oh, don’t sulk,” Rose teased with a smile. “It’s not like anyone suggested kissing anyone else.”

“Fuck. You. Rose.” Dave said through gritted teeth. He wouldn’t look around at anyone else and Jade immediately felt bad.

“Hey guys,” John said, thankfully breaking through the suddenly tense atmosphere. He was pretty good at that, especially with making it seem like that wasn’t what he was doing. “I think it’s almost time.” He showed the clock on his phone to the others and sure enough it was just creeping past eleven-thirty.

Jade, not liking tense atmospheres and starting to get excited for the summoning, stood up excitedly and started clapping her hands. “That’s great! Do we need to stand in the middle of the circle, or is the ghost going to be in the middle?”

Rose exchanged some kind of look with Dave and stood up gracefully. She brushed off any lingering dust from her skirt and picked up her book. “The ghost will, hopefully and presumably, be summoned into the middle of the circle while we stand here safely outside of the circle’s influence.”

Dave shuffled over to stand next to them and the circle. He put his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like the world’s most casual dude. “Cool. Anything you need us to do before you summon our bullshit ghost?”

“You could stop insulting the being we’re trying to summon,” Rose offered dryly. “Other than that, if you and Jade could each hold a candle and stand exactly where we tell you to then that would be perfect.”

Jade had a brief play-fight with Dave over who got to hold which color of candle before the four of them were standing around the circle at each of the cardinal points. And Dave had laughed when she showed off her compass when they first got there!

They stood around the circle as best they could, waiting for the minutes to tic by. 11:40. 11:45. 11:50.

“Hey, Dave, how’d your week go?” Dave muttered to himself. He shifted on his feet slightly but otherwise did not move from his designated spot. “Oh, you know. It was pretty slow. Summoned a ghost, or demon or what-the-fuck-ever at midnight in the middle of the week using the forces of darkness, but that’s whatever, nothing special to write home about. Why, how’d your week go?”

Rose sighed silently. “A problem, Dave?”

“Not really. The surrealism of what we’re doing just caught up with me, though,” Dave said while shrugging. “I am, at this moment, unironically helping to summon something from the great beyond. I guess I just didn’t expect I’d be dabbling in the dark arts when the week started.”

Rose exchanged a look and a wink with Jade, who giggled in response. “Well, that makes one of us. If it bothers you that much you don’t have to do anything other than stand there; John and I will handle the summoning itself.”

Jade was left with a vaguely unsatisfied feeling. She glanced over at Dave and saw the corner of his lips twitch downward for a moment. He probably felt the same way. If they were going to be summoning a ghost, shouldn’t they do so together? Otherwise, what was the point?

“If there’s anything Dave or I could do to help…” Jade trailed off. She was starting to be consciously aware that they only had minutes left until midnight—not very long to back out of anything. “I’d feel bad if we were just standing here, not helping, if there was something we could do.”

John smiled at her. “You don’t have to worry about that,” he reassured her. “Honestly, the most I’m doing is just handing Rose things when she needs them. The summoning only really needs one person to say anything.” His smile turned bright. “It’s why we picked it!”

Rose grimaced. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to imply that I didn’t want your assistance. I figured since I seem to be the one with the most experience at this” Dave muttered a soft _did **not** want to know that_ “I should be the one to perform the ritual.” She turned a kind look towards Jade. “Next time, I’ll find us a ritual we can all take part in.”

“We’ll have to use that next ritual if we don’t get started right fucking now,” Dave warned. Checking the phone set to the side on one of the game machines just for this purpose, Jade saw that they had almost half a minute before midnight. It was time to start.

Rose began intoning in a clear, reaching voice an entreaty for any spirits listening to answer their pleas. She recited from the book propped up before her and Jade held her breath, grinning with excitement. She might actually get to meet a real ghost! She probably wouldn’t fight it, though, not unless it decided to be mean or an asshole to her or her friends.

Then all bets were off.

John handed Rose the baggies filled with powder (some kind of enhancer that Rose had picked up recently, apparently?) and she took a pinch from each bag and threw it into the chalk circle.

“Quick, everyone join hands!” Rose ordered. With a little bit of fumbling around the candles they each were still holding, they were able to make a complete circle around the chalk circle.

Rose spoke out the last of the ritual. “May those who accept my summons, who have a message they wish to tell, come forth at once! I summon thee!”

With all of the build up and based off of all of the movies that Jade had seen with John and Jake, she expected there to be some kind of swell of music, a strong breeze to come through and whip everyone’s hair around, possibly even the scream of a ghost or spirit clawing their way through from the spirit world to speak with them.

What actually happened was much less interesting.

The room remained as silent as it was before they had started talking. There was no music suddenly playing around them, no sound of ghostly voices or murmurs from unseen spirits, and certainly no screaming. The most that happened was the sudden crack of one of the front windows that startled them all enough to drop each other’s hands—though thankfully without also dropping the candles. The last thing they needed was to accidentally burn down the building—that would have been pretty noticeable. The sudden breeze from the air outside escaping through the crack of the window inside blew out the candles, though that also could have been from each of them dropping their hands so fast. The only bit of light that they had came from the camping lantern on the air hockey table casting shadows over half of everyone’s faces. It made for a cool effect, admittedly, but was hardly an efficient source of light.

Rose fumbled through her pocket and pulled out a lighter. She clicked it on and the small source of flickering flame provided enough light to see everyone’s surprised faces.

“Did it work?” John asked, recovering the quickest. As one the group looked towards the center of the chalk circle and saw nothing except powder residue from the ritual. Rose frowned. Jade hurried over to the air hockey table to fetch the lantern. The least they could do was have their conversation in somewhat proper lighting! Rose let the lighter turn off when Jade returned.

“…I’m not seeing anything there,” Dave said. “Should I be? Ghosts are supposed to be invisible, right? Maybe that’s what happened. You know. If it even worked in the first place.”

“Maybe the ghost is shy?” Jade suggested. “Hi, Mr. or Ms. Ghost! It’s nice to meet you. Can you tell us your name?”

“Aren’t you supposed to introduce yourself first?” Dave asked wryly. It was starting to sound like he wasn’t taking this seriously at all, which…fair. So far nothing had really happened. It was a little disappointing, really.

“You’re not supposed to give ghosts, or spirits, or whatever your real name!” John exclaimed, looking aghast. Jade tried not to giggle. He could get so into his Prankster’s Gambit, even when he was actually explaining something. “If you do they’ll take your soul. You don’t want to be soulless, do you Dave?”

“Ha ha,” Dave replied, deadpan.

“While the theatrics were unnecessary,” Rose began with a look at a very unrepentant John, “there is at least some truth in not revealing one’s True Name to a being from another realm. Usually that’s reserved for fairies, or the Fey, however.”

“Probably still a good idea with ghosts,” John shrugged. “For all we know it could be a Ghost-Fairy! Or Fairy-Ghost.”

“It’s not going to matter, though,” Dave interrupted, “because nothing fucking happened.” The center of the circle still remained conspicuously ghost and spirit-free. A low whistle came from the window with the crack as a light breeze passed through.

Rose narrowed her eyes at her brother. “Well, perhaps if you let our potential spirit have a moment to _speak_ to us, Strider, then we would have our answer.”

“That’s not going to happen, _Lalonde_ , because this whole thing was a goddamn waste of time.”

“Harley!” Jade said as cheerfully as she could.

“Egbert!” John replied. At least he was on the same wavelength that it was always awkward whenever siblings argued. “That’s what we’re doing now, right? Saying our last names?”

Dave sighed and started gathering up their scattered supplies. “Yeah, may as well. Nothing happening here except the window breaking for some shitty reason.”

“Maybe the window was just old?” Jade suggested. She glanced towards the window and leant down to help him pick things up. Rose looked like she wanted to argue but looked at the center of the chalk circle once more. She sighed and started wiping away the chalk circle. She and John joined in with cleaning up their things. “Since the building’s been here a while and no one’s been around to take care of it and all.”

“I’m actually surprised we didn’t find more broken windows,” John mused.

Rose sat down next to the camping lantern and looked through the ritual once more. “I just don’t see why it didn’t work,” she muttered. “Were the crystals really necessary? It says they’re optional, though…”

Dave looked over at his sister for a moment and seemed to come to a decision. He held out his hand for her to take to help her stand up. “Maybe…maybe it was supposed to, but the ghost just decided it didn’t want to talk to us. Can you blame it? With three hella-attractive people and John standing around waiting to talk to it, it probably just got a case of the ‘oh no, they’re hot’ ghost disease and decided we were too intimidating to meet in person. Just our luck we get the ingénue ghost. It probably died on its way asking someone to go to the prom but then died before it could get up the chance to ask out the hunky football captain who actually had a decent personality. We’re just the living embodiments of its failure in life and it didn’t want to have to face living, breathing examples of its unfinished business.”

“Wait, why am I not part of the attractive people group?” John squawked. Jade giggled and leant up against him, offering a side hug.

“Because obviously bros can’t call other bros attractive without getting their intentions twisted around by meddling girls who then instantly believe that they’re in some kind of torrid, romantic relationship. _Rose_.” Dave gave his sister a pointed look that she returned with a purposefully innocent smile.

“Why, I don’t know what you could possibly mean,” Rose demurred. Jade tried to smother a snort of laughter. John grimaced.

“Yeah, okay, I see what you mean,” he muttered. “At least I can live with the knowledge that, if it wasn’t for other people” he slid a suspicious glance towards Rose “thinking weird things, I’d definitely be part of the attractive people group.”

“Hella-attractive,” Dave corrected. “Don’t try to diminish our looks or self-esteem over here.”

Rose had a knowing smirk on her face, but changed the subject.

“So. Since our spirit summoning turned out to be a bust, is there anything else we want to do here before we call for our ride home?”

They looked around the room once more to see if there was anything interesting that they had missed but found nothing. Jade did examine the connections on the plugs for the games and mused that, if she had thought of it, she probably could have brought over one of her portable power sources so they could play on the games. Well, past midnight on a school night probably wasn’t the best time for video games so it was probably a good thing she didn’t bring it. After double checking that they had everything they’d brought with them, the four friends went back into the office space and left through the window they’d come in from.

Nobody noticed the strange silhouette, glaring at them through the cracked window at the front of the building before disappearing in a flash of green light.


	9. Craven Notice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose receives a summons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...a week late's not too bad, really. Last week was crazy for me, and then my sister came in over the weekend to help me celebrate passing my comps. So I thought: I *could* post a chapter on Friday the 12th, or I could post the chapter and join in on 4/13 with everyone (happy 10 years, you wonderful Homestucks!). Then my Saturday was spent watching Captain Marvel, going bowling, riding in bumper cars, eating pudding and drinking sparkling grape juice, and watching dumb Youtube videos.
> 
> Why, how'd your Saturday go?
> 
> Also, the handles for the forum that you see here are literally made up of whatever came to mind off the top of my head, and it's late enough that I didn't want to spend even more time figuring out how to make them non-Homestuck colors. Any similarities between Alternian blood colors is coincidence born of laziness and impatience.

It makes me so happy. To be at the beginning again, knowing almost nothing.... A door like this has cracked open five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It's the best possible time of being alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong. --Arcadia, Tom Stoppard

* * *

Rose sat back in her seat on the loveseat in her living room and blissfully let the sounds of her family moving around provide a backdrop to the research she was doing on her laptop. To her left Dave was texting John, more likely than not sending him memes of some kind—probably of the humorous sort, though that was surely debatable. Dirk sat across from her in the reclining easy chair, furiously typing away at some code or project he was working on. Her brother could be surprisingly—or perhaps not so surprisingly—tightlipped about his projects. Roxy reclined on the couch with her cat on her chest. She divided her attention between idly petting Mutini, maintaining a text-based conversation with one of her friends, and a verbal-based one with Dave. How Roxy managed to multitask as well as she did was something of a mystery. In her more fanciful moments, Rose imagined that her sister partook of the dark arts and had managed some kind of spell that bestowed upon her the gift of multitasking. Rose doubted this particular theory, however, since she couldn’t imagine Roxy discovering the gift of magic and then not immediately try to share her knowledge with Rose. They were united in their front that magic was very probable and only required them to search out the arcane secrets of the universe for them to obtain it.

Turning her attention back to her research, Rose idly clicked through some of the more recent pages on _The Testament_ website, bookmarking ones that looked interesting for later and opening windows for ones that grabbed her immediate attention. She had a separate window pulled up that she divided her attention with, monitoring an ongoing debate on the forum’s page between what constituted accurate spectral readings versus the normal amount of residual interference of the mundane variety. It was an interesting debate all things considered and Rose was carefully making mental notes whenever someone made a valid point.

After a few minutes of reading the back and forth between two individuals who’d apparently taken it upon themselves to represent the skeptic and the believer communities Rose couldn’t help but decide to add in her own comments. Perhaps she’d even be able to have a question that had been on her mind recently answered as well.

booberrypunch: it’s all well and good to discount out the obvious, but you can’t leave out everything! there are several instances where certain readings can’t be explained by science, and random probability doesn’t account for what we’ve been finding in the arbor recently! there’s random, and then there’s too often to be a coincidence.  
maniacmcgeeshouseisonfire: Except you are only saying that the so called ‘readings’ you’ve been finding are ‘too often to be a coincidence’ because you refuse to discount anything! First there’s lights in the woods, which literally have dozens of reasonable, scientific explanations, and now you’re spreading rumors about levitating objects!  
maniacmcgeeshouseisonfire: Either pick something to devote your amateur sleuthing to and stick with it, or come up with more believable evidence that *can’t* be refuted by anybody with a knowledge of high school science.  
booberrypunch: how about video evidence???  
booberrypunch: i’ve already uploaded the video to the website, and you can clearly see objects floating in midair!  
maniacmcgeeshouseisonfire: Yes, I’ve seen this video. It’s a shaky image of sticks, leaves and a hat ‘floating’ in the wind. It does happen, you know.  
maniacmcgeeshouseisonfire: Weather. Who’d have thought?  
tentacletherapist: Excuse me for interrupting this absolutely riveting argument before it devolves any further into school yard taunts and insults, but I have a general query I would like to ask the forum.  
sparkleplugs490: Yes, please do!  
naturesverdantdiscourse: i hate it when mommy and daddy fight :(

At least it wasn’t just Rose getting fed up with a topic of merit spiraling out of control. 

tentacletherapist: I suppose my question has to do with the mysterious phenomena that have been occurring in the woods lately.  
tentacletherapist: Or perhaps ‘lately’ in regards to my own understanding of the events. I will admit I have only become aware of these mysteries within the last few weeks.  
naturesverdantdiscourse: yo saaaame  
naturesverdantdiscourse: i’ve been living here, liek, 20 years and only found out about this shit when i went out on a walk w/ my dog about a month ago. she started going crazy, tryin to drag me out of the murder woods and thats when i saw the weird lights for the first time.  
naturesverdantdiscourse: i always thought they were rumors, tho.  
[Mod Samantha]: The lights have been something long documented in our town, though usually with long periods of time between sightings. The more recent sightings have only begun about four months ago, so from a certain perspective they can be said to be ‘new’. The levitating objects are…newer, let’s say.  
[Mod Samantha]: What’s your question, @tentacletherapist?

Rose raised an eyebrow, intrigued by the sudden appearance of one of the website’s moderators. From what she’d perused so far of the forum boards, the moderators usually kept to themselves unless a really, really bad argument had broken out or if someone was using slurs or hate speech; even then, though, the moderators usually kept it to a general warning or a ban if the warned party didn’t listen. Occasionally one or two would pop in to provide some background information about a subject they knew a lot about but they would just leave it as a brief comment. Rose had never seen one engage directly with one of the commenters on the forums before, which seemed like an oversight on their part to be honest.

If one of them was reaching out to her it had to be about something important. Rose organized her thoughts for a few brief seconds before responding. She had a feeling this was about to take an interesting turn.

tentacletherapist: My question I suppose is: How sure are we that these ‘signs’ that we’ve been seeing are connected?  
tentacletherapist: We are assuming that the lights, which have been established to be essentially standard for the woods at this point, are now somehow connected to mysterious figures and creatures that are now also being sighted as well as new sightings of levitating objects.  
tentacletherapist: It seems easy to me to connect them all together like symptoms of a singular event, but what evidence do we have that they are even connected at all other than their approximate location to one another?  
maniacmcgeeshouseisonfire: @tentacletherapist <\-- Asking the real questions over here.  
makersbourbon: that’s…a good point. I guess I just assumed that since they were all a bunch of weird things happening at the same time in the same place they had to do with the same thing, but when you put it like that…  
pandasrcute: wait wat mysterous figuers?? wen did dat hapen????

Rose sighed and rolled her eyes. It looked like she found another follower of her brother’s. She could always tell them by their atrocious grammar and spelling, particularly of the word ‘happen’. Somehow, they always managed to slip that or the phrases “we’re making it happen” and “I warned you about the stairs, dog!” into whatever conversation they were having. She thought about bringing this up but knowing Dave he would just take some kind of weird pride in further degrading the English language. 

booberrypunch: this is what i mean by too much of a coincidence!  
booberrypunch: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is a pattern. we have mysterious lights (1), sightings of figures or creatures (2), and now levitating objects (3). we can’t just say that they’re not connected, or at least discount the possibility that they are out of hand!  
maniacmcgeeshouseisonfire: Oh, so we’re starting up *this* again.

When the second argument broke out between these two particular commenters with no end in sight, Rose sighed and closed out of the forum window. No one adequately answered her question and it didn’t look like they were going to any time soon. Honestly, this whole situation was frustrating. It felt like she was collecting pieces to a puzzle with no idea where they fit in, if they did at all, and she was nowhere near close enough to even begin to create a picture with the pieces she did have. Rose had theories, many of them in fact, but with nothing new to add it felt like her investigation had stalled. 

After their attempted spirit summoning earlier that week Rose had felt a strange mix of disappointment mixed with optimism. The summoning hadn’t worked, and it felt like she had nothing to show for her efforts, but at the same time it felt like she was at least a little closer to an answer. If only she didn’t also have the strange feeling that she had overlooked something, or forgotten some crucial piece of…something. Try as she might, Rose couldn’t find anything that she or her friends had done wrong with the summoning. She wracked her brain going over the memory over and over again but she still came up with nothing. 

Nothing, except for more rumors and a partial time frame for hauntings in the area. But, as she mentioned in the forum, there was no guarantee that the hauntings of the arcade going on twenty-something years ago had anything to do with strange lights, Mysterious Creatures, and apparently levitating objects in the present. 

Well, there was a mysterious set of footprints but…they just didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Rose thought about having Dave send her a copy of the photos he had taken of them so she could post them to the website to gauge others’ opinions on their validity but judging by how quickly an argument broke out over whether video evidence was legitimate or not she had a feeling that her simple photo evidence would be declared photoshopped. 

Rose looked to her side when she felt a light touch on her arm. Jaspers had jumped up to the arm of the loveseat next to her without her noticing and was trying to get her attention. Rose smiled and pushed her laptop further towards her knees, opening a spot in her lap where he could curl up if he so chose. Jaspers batted at her arm twice more, noticed the sudden opening and pranced to his favorite spot, still warm from the computer. Jaspers started purring and looked up to Rose’s face with half-lidded eyes. He meowed once and reached up towards her face. Rose tried half-heartedly to not fall for his tricks. 

“I know exactly what you’re trying to do, you know,” she told him. “Don’t think you can distract me just because you’ve taken residence in my lap. I still have my hands free.” She lifted her arms and wiggled her fingers at her cat to show him just how free and non-encumbered her hands were. Jaspers didn’t appear too impressed. He yawned, stretched, and batted at one of her hands. “I get the feeling you’re not taking me seriously.” 

“He’s a cat, Rose,” Dirk said from his seat. His expression hadn’t changed but she could detect a trace of humor in her brother’s voice. “They never take anything seriously.” 

“Now that’s just racist,” Roxy said absently, still texting one of her friends. 

“Not what racist means, but whatever.” 

Rose might have been tempted to continue with this train of thought—possibly to goad her older siblings into fully defining what ‘race’ meant, specifically in relation to consciousness and agency—when she heard her twin snicker silently beside her. Dave had practically melted into the loveseat cushions, his lips twitching as he worked to suppress a smile. The potentiality of the consciousness and personhood of cats was one thing; this seemed like a much more interesting development. 

“And what are you laughing about, Dave?” Rose asked with a raised brow and a slight smile on her face. It was nice to see her brother loosen up more. If only her smiles didn’t also immediately set him on edge. Rose wondered as she watched Dave sit up straighter in his seat what it might be like to have the kind of relationship with your siblings where you didn’t immediately wonder if they were up to something nefarious just because they asked you a question and gave you a smile. 

Dave, pulling up his persona of a cool kid, shrugged one shoulder and leant an arm against his armrest like there was nothing bothering him. “What, laughing? Me? That’s slander of the highest authority. I don’t know where you’re getting your facts but you might want to double check them. They’re faulty like a leaky pipe that has spent the last seven years suffering from a fucking seven hundred pound sumo wrestler with gastro-intestinal problems taking the worst shits anyone has ever behold. Ain’t no way a plumber’s fixing that fucking mess, you’re going to have to replace the whole thing, toilet, plumbing and floor ‘cause you know. You know that there’s years of water damage you’re going to have to deal with here, can’t save none of that shit and I hope you know you’re not getting your deposit back, either.” 

Sometimes, Rose had to be patient. Sometimes, she had to play along with her twin’s rambling and hope he’ll reach a point sometime that year. Other times she’d have to head him off and redirect him back to the subject of conversation. That was harder when his cool kid persona got in the way of him expressing any kind of genuine—or semi-genuine—emotion of any kind. If nothing else, Dave helped test Rose’s patience and her ability to focus on a single issue without getting distracted. 

“Putting that colorful metaphor aside,” she said, raising her eyebrow higher. “Did John mention anything funny when you were not-laughing?” Rose noticed that she was scratching Jaspers behind the ears. She wondered when that happened; this proved, at least partially in Rose’s mind, that her cat did indeed have some kind of mystical power that she didn’t understand. 

Dave looked like he might try to head off into another slew of metaphors for a moment. He opened his mouth to say something and hesitated for the briefest of moments before continuing on with what was probably not what he was initially going to say. “John was just complaining to me about his dad and nanna being weird and sending him on more errands to the store,” he said. “Apparently next week our school’s having a bake sale or something, so John’s family is getting super pumped about it.” Dave’s mouth twitched once again in an aborted smile. “Supposedly, John’s dad threatened to make a six layer cake if John didn’t help clean up and pick up extra ingredients.” 

“Oh yeah,” Roxy mused from the couch. She, too, was scratching her cat behind the ears, much to Mutini’s apparent delight. “I forgot our school did that. It’s something they do every October as like a precursor to Halloween. Apparently some of the kids’ parents at our school are crazy fucking competitive about who can raise the most money with their stuff. It’s kind of wild to think that there are some people already getting ready for that.” 

Considering this was her first year at the high school Rose could be forgiven for not knowing about this ostensible yearly tradition. Needing a distraction from her latest research snag she leaned over to get a better look at Dave’s phone screen. She opened her mouth to make what was surely going to be a pithy retort when Mom entered the room looking distracted. 

“I know I put that phone somewhere…” she muttered to herself, barely taking note of her children. Rose tried not to feel like her mood had been killed and instead watched as her Mom started poking around the foliage of a fake potted plant. 

“Do you need help looking for something, Mom?” Dirk asked. 

Mom offered him a brief smile and continued looking in the strangest, out of the way places around the room. “No, I’m good, honey.” She paused, biting her bottom lip in thought. “What were you talking about when I came in? Something about a bake sale?” 

Dave, predictably, took it upon himself to answer for them. “My friend John told me that the school’s doing a bake sale next week, and his family’s helping out with that.” 

To Rose’s horror, Mom stopped looking under the television stand to tilt her head in consideration. “Huh. Do you know what the sale’s for? What they’re raising the money for?” 

Dirk, distracted by whatever was going on on his screen, answered absentmindedly. “I think it’s to raise money to put on a school carnival for Halloween, so they can then raise money for school supplies.” 

Mom smiled at them like she had a great idea and was excited to share it with them. “Well, hey! Carnivals are the shit, I always loved going to one. Do you think it’s too late for me to sign up to help out?” Her smile grew as she contemplated something. “I bet I could make excellent cookies. Or brownies? …Nah, cookies are better. Which do you think I should do, chocolate chip or peanut butter?” 

Rose stared at her Mom in disbelief. Just…what was happening with her lately? Mom was acting—and it had to be acting, Rose couldn’t think about what the alternative might be—like she wanted to…participate in her kids’ school life. To put it frankly, this was so far off of Mom’s established pattern of behavior that they were starting to enter into bullshit shenanigans territory. There had to be some explanation for this. And yet, all she could think of to say to try to talk Mom out of this was “But—you don’t even know how to bake anything!” 

Mom scoffed, which did nothing to calm Rose’s frayed feelings. “Rose sweetie, I’m a _scientist_. I literally mix together chemical compounds and other ingredients to make super cool science shit every day. All I have to do to bake is follow a recipe that already has pre-measured out ingredients, and I don’t even have to do any complex equations to make sure I have everything measured out correctly. How hard can it be?” Rose had a feeling that there were several culinary specialists and top chefs around the world either weeping in despair or clenching their teeth in anger right now without knowing why. 

Dave did absolutely nothing to help mitigate the situation. “I just texted John and he says that the sign-up for the bake sale is still open. You just have to get in contact with Mitzi Stevenson from the PTA and she’ll sign you up. Oh, John’s saying his dad’s willing to add you to the list since him and his family practically co-run the thing anyway. Want me to send him your deets?” And here Rose had thought he’d been all for keeping their parents separated from one another. Now was probably not the time to bring up her twin’s deep seated parental issues, however. 

Mom beamed at him. “That would be wonderful, thank you Dave. Can you tell me what day it’ll be? I’ll take off from work if I have to.” 

At that point Rose tuned out of the conversation, not wanting to listen in any more than she had to. There was something weird going on with her mother and Rose wasn’t sure if she had the wherewithal at the moment to properly deal with this new issue. She had enough on her mind with her new pet project; she didn’t need another. She glanced down at the cat in her lap to see if he had any insights to offer. Still purring, Jaspers blearily opened an eye, yawned, and snuggled back into a ball for a nap. It looked like she would receive no advice from this particular avenue. 

Wanting to feel at least a little productive over something Rose turned back to her computer and the _Testament_ website still pulled up. She considered her status of being Trapped By Cat and pulled out the knitting project she had started recently, if only to have something to do with her hands while she read. Maybe she would learn more about levitating objects! That sounded like a good use of her time. Because why _wouldn’t_ there be more fucking bullshit happening right now? She jerked her hands more violently than she had intended and ended up dropping three stitches. She swore under her breath and started on the process of straightening out her project to something more presentable. It was her goal to have knit at least one new object for each of her family members by either Christmas or their birthdays in December. She initially wanted to make a sweater for each of them but every single tutorial and guide that she had found suggested that that was perhaps too much for a beginner in such a short period of time. Rose would have felt more discouraged if she weren’t also painfully aware of how clumsy her first attempts at making a single row come out straight and not lumpy had been. 

Next year for sure, though. 

On a more serious note, Rose did want to at least take down a list of the objects that were said to have been levitated. Some small rocks, twigs, leaves swirling around without a breeze to help them along, some small trash that had been littered in the woods, and a few other small items including a hat. Maybe it was even the same hat Jade said was missing? The description wasn’t quite descriptive enough to tell her exactly what kind of hat it was, and well—one of the commenters did have a point that the video of the event wasn’t nearly high enough quality to pick out any details other than a blur of motion and color. 

Rose would have continued looking for any more references when she noticed a flashing icon at the top next to her profile picture. Someone was sending her a direct message. That was peculiar enough to investigate. She looked up briefly to see that Roxy and Dirk had gotten up from their seats and were helping Mom search the room for her phone while Dave continued texting John. 

All in all a typical Saturday morning. 

Curious, Rose brought up her profile on the website and checked her inbox. There was a message waiting for her from one of the moderators. She couldn’t help but feel curious about this new turn of events. The message itself was relatively short. 

tentacletherapist,

You have brought up some interesting points today, and I have noticed from previous comments you have made that you seem to have a better grasp of the supernatural than many on this website do. If you still have questions without answers, come meet me at Teatime Tollivers at noon and I will do my best to provide what answers I have.

Best,

Mod Samantha

Well that was suitably ominous. And yet, Rose couldn’t help but want to make this particular appointment. She couldn’t deny that she had questions that were starting to burn at her, particularly since there didn’t seem to be any kind of solution to them, easy or otherwise. Still, Rose had a feeling that there was more to this meeting than a genuine desire to provide answers to queries. If that were all it was, then why wouldn’t ‘Mod Samantha’ just answer them over private messaging? There was something more going on here, and Rose could feel herself growing excited over the prospect that she might match wits with someone she didn’t mind taking down a peg or two so much. Obvious flattery aside—‘you seem to have a better grasp of the supernatural, et al’—her mystery sender must have wanted something to call her out so suddenly. 

Oh, this could be both fun and informative. Rose approved of that kind of multitasking. She checked the time and saw she still had almost an hour before she met this ‘Mod Samantha.’ Teatime Tollivers, the local kitschy tea shop that was built about five years ago and meant to serve an emerging hipster class of patron, was on the other side of the park and about a twenty minute walk away. Despite its best intentions, Tollivers best customers were members of the older generation, narrowing down approximately who was most likely to call her out to the teashop for a chat. The summons also revealed possible assumptions the moderator was making about Rose herself. 

_The Testament_ website, like many others that allowed you to make an account, required that its members be at least eighteen years old to make an account. Like many others Rose’s age, she fudged her birth year so she could make an account. Her profile said that she was nineteen, a psychology major, and a Sagittarius. It was entirely possible that ‘Mod Samantha’ expected her to be older than her stated age and was instead pretending to be younger for some reason. It may have something to do with the way Rose typed and the fact that she tended towards verbosity rather than brevity. 

Replying that she would make the appointment, Rose couldn’t help but smile. She felt like she was currently winning some fight or argument, for a given value of ‘winning’ and ‘argument.’ 

It took a few minutes for Rose to convince Jaspers to vacate her lap before she was able to set her laptop aside, stand up and stretch. She turned to address the room. 

“I’m going to head over to Tollivers for a while,” she announced. “I shouldn’t be more than an hour and a half or so.” 

“That’s fine, Rose,” Mom said, still clearly distracted and starting to show her frustration for her missing phone. “What the fuck, did it become invisible or something?” 

Roxy also looked frustrated with the fruitless search. “Are you sure it’s not in your pocket?” she asked, sitting on the floor and brushing dust off herself from where she’d been looking under the couch. 

“Yes!” 

Dirk frowned. “Maybe you should retrace your steps?” Dave, still on the loveseat, was either not paying attention or ignoring the drama going on around him. Rose couldn’t blame him, frankly. She was at least using this opportunity to meet up with someone without running into the issue of who should drive her over, or even really asking permission to go. It was the weekend, and her parents tended to be a lot more lax about what their kids did then. 

Mom sighed and brushed hair out of her eyes. “God, you sound just like my mom.” 

Almost as if summoned, Rose could hear Mom’s ringtone from the coffee table. The room, sans Dave, stared at the table for a long moment, letting the phone ring once, twice more. Mom brushed aside a few magazines to find her phone sitting there innocently. 

Roxy groaned. “Oh, come on! I thought we checked there already!” 

Mom snatched her phone and answered it perhaps more brusquely than she meant to. 

“Mom!” she exclaimed. “Good timing, I was just looking for my phone…” 

Rose took this moment to mean she should gather up her things and get ready to leave. Roxy stood up and flopped back down on the couch. Dirk stared at the coffee table once more, frowning, before turning back to the chair he’d claimed to continue working on his project. 

“What do you mean, ‘you know?’” Mom said suddenly, sharply. “Mom, what have I told you about spying on me?!” Dirk glanced up at her tone before getting settled back with his project, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Rose didn’t blame him; as tense as she felt things were between herself and Mom, she had a feeling that things were just as if not more tense between Mom and her mother. “Just—yeah, okay, you know because of ‘magic.’ Okay. So, how’s your book tour going? Do you know if you’ll be back in time for Thanksgiving?” 

Rose quickly gathered her knitting together, made sure her phone had a proper charge, and walked out as quickly as she could. 

* * *

The air inside of Tolliver’s was pleasantly cool after coming in from the heat of outside. October had just started and it had yet to cool down to anything particularly noticeable or pleasant just yet. Inside there were several tables scattered around the relatively small space and only a handful of people inside, all of whom had at the very least a decade on Rose’s age. That was fine, though. Rose wasn’t here for socializing; she was here for answers. 

A few of the other customers looked up at her with curiosity but otherwise paid her no mind other than a few quizzical glances at her outfit. Rose felt it was only appropriate to dress to impress everywhere she went, even if she was in her own home. She looked around and didn’t see anyone that immediately stuck out to her as someone waiting to exchange secrets with another person…at least, not beyond the usual ‘chat with friends’ manner like most of the people here had. Considering Rose was twenty minutes early this made sense and allowed her to scope out a table that would be the most appropriate location for her upcoming meeting—in this case, one that provided Rose with a view of everyone coming and going from the café. 

Part of the reason for being early was for finding a table. The other was pure battle strategy—never let the opponent dictate how the battle would go. Rose already had the element of surprise about her age on her side, but it didn’t hurt to dictate where they actually sat. The mysterious Moderator Samantha chose the locale; Rose chose the particulars. 

She walked over to a table located far enough away from the other customers that she didn’t run too much of a risk of being overheard while still close enough that the general chatter of the place would help obscure the topics of discussion and discourage eavesdroppers. After setting her bag of knitting down on the table Rose walked to the counter and ordered a cranberry citrus tea to drink on while she waited. To pass the time, Rose brought out her knitting and started in on another row. It looked like her family would be getting scarves for Christmas this year. Rose had managed to pick up some colored yarn at a crafts store the other day and so far was satisfied with the colors she’d chosen. She hoped Dave liked his red scarf; if need be, Rose could always add a black border to it to make it more visually appealing. 

Once or twice while waiting Rose ended up striking a conversation with one of the other customers who came over to ask about what she was working on as well as offer knitting tips of their own. Rose privately filed away the information that apparently the best way to get a member of one of the older generation to talk to you was to sit down and start knitting on something. Thinking back on it, Rose did notice that there were several women at Bingo Night who knitted while they played. This new hobby of hers could potentially end up aiding her in attracting people over to ask them questions about the history of their town. 

Ten minutes before it was officially time for her meeting a new customer entered the building. The newcomer was a woman who looked to be in her early forties, with brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, glasses, and a file folder full of papers tucked securely under her arm. The woman swept her gaze around the room, taking in the other people sitting at tables before her eyes landed on Rose. When their eyes met Rose suppressed a smile at the surprised look on the other woman’s face. It looked like her conversation partner had arrived, also early. 

Rose finished up the row she was working on and set her knitting to the side, gesturing the woman closer. The woman frowned, having obviously lost her train of thought. If there was nothing else that Rose could say she was good at, it was subverting others expectations of her. 

The woman walked slowly over to her table, perhaps still thinking that she wasn’t actually meeting a thirteen year old girl after all. Rose offered her best neutral welcoming smile. 

“Would I be correct in assuming that I am speaking with ‘Mod Samantha’?” 

The woman—‘Samantha’—frowned deeper. “You can’t be tentacletherapist,” she stated. 

Rose felt her smile widen the slightest bit. “That is not my proper name, of course,” she said. “I believe that is what most people would call a ‘chat name.’ Judging by the fact that you know of my online handle I take it that you are indeed the person who wanted to meet with me to discuss…what was the phrase you used? Questions without answers?” When ‘Samantha’ said nothing Rose gestured to the seat across from her once more. “Please, I insist. Our talk will be much more pleasant if we’re both sitting.” 

Dave probably would have called Rose’s behavior right now her ‘intimidating supervillian act,’ which she had to admit she was enjoying more than a little bit. But really, what did ‘Samantha’ expect, calling out a person she only knew from a few comments that Rose had made that weren’t even specifically directed at her? Anyone could show up, and Rose thought it was a good life lesson to never make assumptions about someone you didn’t know nor have ever met in person. 

‘Samantha,’ still looking wearily at Rose between glancing around at the rest of the room to see if anyone was paying them any attention, finally took the proffered seat. Rose took a sip of her tea and waited for her conversation partner to say something. 

“Aren’t you too young to have an account with our website?” ‘Samantha’ finally asked. 

“It’s not like there are any safeguards in place to actually check,” Rose explained. “That’s not on you, though. The entire age verification system works essentially on the honor system where we all agree that we are of legal age. I assure you, I have seen nothing on the website that I would not have been able to find in either any book on the supernatural or from some movie or television show.” 

‘Samantha’ frowned once more. “We also can’t monitor everyone’s language use all the time.” 

Rose stared at the woman in her best impression of the Strider Deadpan. “Are you actually concerned with people swearing in the comments? I have heard much, much worse from my twin brother.” Not to mention almost every other member of her family, but that was getting a little too off topic and a little too personal. Rose had a purpose for coming here. “Forgetting for the moment your assumptions about my age, the reason why we’re here is because I have questions and you claim to have answers. Is that still true, or does the truth now suddenly have an age limit?” 

‘Samantha’ sighed and set her file folder of papers on the café table. “No, I suppose there’s no problem. What do you want to know first?” 

Rose sat up straighter in her seat. “Well, Samantha, I would first like to know-” 

“Wait,” ‘Samantha interrupted. “If we’re going to do this, we should probably exchange names. My name’s not really Samantha, that’s just a name I use as a moderator.” 

That was indeed something Rose had picked up on, yes. Her Mom had only gushed over that old TV show all throughout Rose’s childhood after she’d discovered what magic was. 

“I’m telling you, Rosey,” Mom had slurred as she tucked Rose and Dave in at night back when they shared a room, “that could’ve been my life! You know,” Mom had then snorted, “if my mom had been magic, and then I would have been, and then you would be!” From what Rose had later been able to tell, one of the things that had really helped Mom and her mom bond had been watching old shows about magic. It made sense, actually, that Mom might have adopted some of her mannerisms from watching shows like that. 

“Pretty sure that would make me the cuckolded husband,” Bro had said blandly by the door. “Don’t really think that suits me, babe.” 

Mom had rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, only partially due to whatever alcoholic drink she’d had that night. “He was not cuckolded!” 

“She didn’t tell him about her magic until after they were married. Pretty sure that fits the definition of ‘cuckold’ at least partially.” 

And that had been how Rose, at the age of five, had learned what the world ‘cuckold’ meant. 

Rose offered a smile at not-Samantha. “‘You can call her what you like,’” she quoted. “‘I shall call her Tabitha.’” 

Not-Samantha furrowed her brow. “You’ve seen _Bewitched_?” 

“Only a little,” Rose said simply. “What should I call you, then?” 

“Penelope Craven works,” the editor of _Cassandra’s Truth_ said with a wry smile. Rose tried not to let on how surprised she was at that information. The editor had decided to seek her out personally? It looked like this Craven woman had one this particular surprise round. “And you?” 

“Rose,” she answered briefly. “Well, I suppose I’m talking to the right woman to answer my questions.” 

Craven smiled sharply. “Ask away.” 

Rose felt like she was being judged and that she would need to pick the best question to ask first if only to prove her worth as someone interested in the supernatural. There was a not insignificant part of Rose that chafed at having to prove anything to anybody, let alone a stranger that Rose already felt antipathy towards, but this was the situation she found herself in. If she wanted answers, she would need to play nice. 

“Why not go for the elephant in the room first? Exactly what is going on in the Murder Woods, and what does it all mean?” 

Craven tapped a finger on the file folder. Her lips twitched. “That’s a broad question, so I hope you’re prepared for a broad answer.” 

“I’m sure I could trim my questions down to something more specific should the answer not cover everything I wish to know.” 

“Very well,” Craven said. “First off, you should know that your question is something that _Cassandra’s Testament_ has been trying to answer for decades, since I helped start the paper going on twenty years ago.” 

“Around the time of the arcade haunting,” Rose noted with interest. 

“Exactly. The hauntings were what made me interested in the supernatural to begin with, and as I’m sure you know there is a long history of the supernatural here in Skaia.” 

“Or at least, events that have been attributed to supernatural behavior.” 

Craven glared at her, though whether it was for the interruption or for the show of skepticism Rose wasn’t sure. 

“Rose, you seem like a smart girl,” she began. “I’m sure you’ve read through almost every back issue that we have on the website, and you may have even looked some things up yourself in the library, or online. Haven’t you noticed something…strange?” 

Rose narrowed her eyes at the backhanded compliment. “Perhaps, but I’m sure you’d love to tell me yourself. Just in case I’m not as smart as I think I am.” 

The editor continued on, not paying attention to her last statement. “Everything that we talk about in _Cassandra’s Testament_ is documented. There are historical, and in some cases legal, records of supernatural events going on in Skaia dating back to the eighteen hundreds.” Craven paused, probably for effect. “Why do you think no one talks about them? Or how no one even seems to know that these things are happening despite literal decades’ worth of public records? Don’t you think it’s almost as if someone is making sure no one knows anything?” 

Rose frowned. “A compelling argument to be sure, but I’m not sure how much I buy the conspiracy theory angle.” 

Craven wordlessly started rifling through her file folder, pulling out several sheets of papers with news stories going back as far as a hundred years ago to as recent as two weeks ago—the time frame when Jade first found the story about the Mysterious Creature in the woods. 

“If you’ll notice, not all of these are stories that we did,” Craven explained. “This one,” she said pointing to an article about lights in the woods dating back in the nineteen eighties, “was published by Skaia’s official newspaper. They still write stories about the things people see in the woods and around town, but nobody pays attention. It doesn’t help that the stories that make it past their editor are essentially puff pieces.” 

Rose wanted to say that that didn’t prove anything. That with a town this small, the only way stories are going to be put in the paper is if they entertain and a town history of ‘entertaining news’ didn’t mean that there was anything actually to Craven’s claims of a cover-up. But then she thought back to asking around at Bingo Night about the disappearing homestead and how, despite how prominent the missing people were to the town community and how large the story should have been, nobody seemed to know anything about what happened. It perhaps wouldn’t be wrong to say that there may have been some kind of cover-up but one lasting all the way to the present day and specifically targeting instances of supernatural activity? That seemed a little farfetched, which Rose told Craven. 

“You’re not asking the right questions,” Craven told her. “ _Why_ such a conspiracy would take place isn’t nearly as important as _who_ is behind it.” 

Rose frowned. “Are you suggesting that the government is behind this conspiracy?” she asked skeptically. “Or perhaps the whole town? ‘For the greater good,’ and all that?” 

Craven snorted. “Of course not. But don’t you think it’s odd that such a prominent and supposedly important science lab is stationed in such a remote location? Especially when that lab is doing experiments about literally who knows what, since _nobody_ who doesn’t work there knows anything about what they’re supposed to be doing?” Craven leant in closer, clearly on a roll. “Because I have checked with the mayor’s office, and city hall, and the records office, and there is no record available about what type of work they claim to be doing.” 

For the first time in the conversation Rose began to feel uneasy. “You’re talking about Skaia Labs.” She looked down at the printed articles again, trying to see if there was any trace of her mother’s workplace having anything to do with any of this. 

Her eyes jumped to an article with an interview of one of the lead scientists at the lab. One Roxanne Lalonde was interviewed a few years ago about the rash of sightings of strange lights in the woods. In the picture accompanying the article Mom had an amused glimmer in her eyes and her mouth quirked in a grin. The interview itself had Mom refute claims of the supernatural while offering scientific explanations for what people might have been seeing. 

Rose swallowed. “Mom…” she murmured, eyes locked on the article. 

“‘Mom’?” Craven echoed, looking down to see what had caught Rose’s attention. She breathed in sharply. “Are you telling me you’re _Roxanne Lalonde’s daughter?_ ” Craven suddenly scowled and started stuffing the articles back into the file folder. “Of course. I should have known. So, what, did your mother send you here to find out what we knew? Try to stop us from exposing the truth to the public? Because we have a right to the press, and—” 

“What? No, of course not,” Rose said quickly. “She doesn’t even… This is the first I’ve heard of any of this!” 

Craven leveled a look at her, gauging her sincerity. “…am I supposed to believe that _Roxanne Lalonde’s_ own daughter doesn’t know what her mother’s up to? Doesn’t know what that—that _facility_ is up to?” 

“I know my Mom works in genetics,” Rose said as confidently as she could. This meeting was not turning out anything like she had expected. Frankly, it was by sheer luck that no one else in the room was paying them any attention even with Craven’s outburst. “Anything else, she doesn’t tell us. Non-disclosure agreement, she said.” 

“Or, she’s not keen on spreading her company’s secrets around town,” Craven surmised. It looked like she’d calmed down from…whatever that reaction to Rose’s Mom had been. 

Rose remembered a scoff and dismissive words in a dismissive tone. “ _If it was a story from our town’s tabloid, I’m not surprised._ ” Just what was the history between these two women? Frustratingly, Rose had a feeling that neither party would be willing to tell her what was going on. 

There was also a part of Rose that was starting to at least consider Craven’s words. A conspiracy, and Rose’s Mom was involved. Didn’t Rose just earlier notice that Mom had been acting strangely lately? And despite always claiming to have an interest in the subject, Mom did seem rather dismissive of anything to do with magic. Rose had thought that it was because her Mom was just dismissive of Rose’s hobbies, but what if there was another reason behind that indifference? At the very least, this was an avenue of study that Rose couldn’t just ignore. 

“So then,” Rose said as steadily as she could. “What does Skaia Labs or my mother have to do with sightings of Mysterious Creatures, or lights in the woods, or objects levitating on their own? Are you suggesting that they’re behind these phenomena?” 

Craven eyed Rose shrewdly. “It’s entirely possible they’re linked in some way, though how exactly I’m not sure. Skaia Labs has been operating in this town, under one name or another, for almost a century now. The phenomena that you’ve described have been observed off and on in the same time period, but try as I might I can’t find anything conclusive about these things happening before the lab moved in.” 

Rose frowned. “But I thought you said, or at least implied, that there have been supernatural sightings in Skaia since before Mom’s workplace moved in?” 

“Supernatural sightings, sure. These specific sightings on the other hand? No.” 

“And you don’t know what connection, if any, these most recent phenomena have with Skaia Labs?” Rose mused. 

“No,” Craven said slowly. “But, you have a direct connection to the source that I don’t have as well as opportunity to figure that out.” Craven stood up once more. Her hand hesitated over the file folder before sliding it closer to Rose’s side of the table. “Here; a place to start. If you find anything, let me know, okay?” Offering only a look that was more grimace than smile Craven left the café. 

Rose was left alone, with little more than yet another mysterious piece to the puzzle and a new clue to start on. Once again, she was left with more questions than answers. She also never did get her initial question answered. 

**Author's Note:**

> Pacing is going to be the end of me.


End file.
